Tag: Family

Posted in Netgalley

The Jewel Keepers by Sara Sheridan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Men would kill for this treasure.

The McKenzie women will guard it with their lives.

London, 1837. When 25-year-old Araminta McKenzie-Moore is summoned from Richmond to her great aunt’s deathbed in Edinburgh, it’s the first time she’s met her extended family. The McKenzie women, however, have been keeping a close eye on her. For they have a long, secret and dangerous history as Jewel Keepers to the Scottish Crown and they need Araminta to play her part to solve a puzzle which stretches back generations.

But the McKenzies are not alone in this high-stakes treasure hunt though history. They’re being pursued. The last of her line, if Araminta succeeds, she will uncover something more valuable than mere jewels – a secret that will change the lives of all women living on this, the cusp of the Queen Victoria’s rule.

The plot of this novel is extraordinary, taking historical facts and weaving in the story of a long line of McKenzie women who have fought for the Crown Jewels of the Scottish Royal family, most specifically the Stuart queens. The last Stuart queen was Queen Anne, who died without a direct heir in 1714, to be followed by the Hanoverians. If found, the jewels are meant to be kept safe until a ‘worthy Queen’ sits on the throne and they can be returned to her. The book is set just before the reign of Queen Victoria so this is an important time for their quest. Could she possibly be the worthy Queen they’ve been hoping for? Araminta has had no knowledge of the family history or her role in history until she’s summoned to Edinburgh by her aunt Eilidh McKenzie who lives in a beautiful Georgian house. In the course of one evening, Eilidh hints at the quest ahead, explaining Araminta’s ancestors were Jacobites and clearly also early feminists. A family tree shows that McKenzie women kept their own surname even when married, with a diamond marking out those chosen to safeguard the Queen’s Crown, down the maternal line. Unfortunately Aunt Eilidh dies before she can give Araminta any more clues meaning she faces a complicated task, solving the final clues in a strange city. Added to this quest are a shady male organisation called The Hermits, treacherous servants, dangerous missions and a very feisty nun. 

There are great female characters in this story, especially Araminta who blooms as the story progresses, achieving so much more than she thought possible. She grasps this challenge and runs with it, despite not knowing Scotland and meeting with violence, kidnap and false imprisonment – not to mention a very precarious church roof! It’s great to see that transition where she starts to think for herself: 

‘For years she’s been restrained by teachers, by her position, by other people’s expectations. Now, here, perhaps for the first time in her life she’s free to follow her own judgement.” 

It’s not surprising that she finds this freedom in Edinburgh where she’s informed that even the Bishop was a supporter of women becoming more than wives and mothers. Araminta finds that her powers of deduction are sound and starts to trust herself. She recognises this mission as her chance to grow and test out her capabilities, free from the burden of society’s rules. It’s not a surprise when we learn about her ancestors and especially when she meets with a feisty nun called Sister Winifred, a very intelligent woman who carries a ‘muff gun’ and is quite willing to fight. Even when imprisoned, Araminta finds an ingenious way of escaping her cell that even has a police officer surprised! Apparently no one else has ever thought to try it.

Brodie the butler (and so much more) captured my heart as well. He’s so noble and I loved how even with these smaller characters the author gives so much attention to detail. Brodie doesn’t just have a romantic back story, his night visits to a make shift boxing gym also give his character dimension. Our villain of the piece, Harry Thom, is a vile character. Today he’d be a fully paid up member of the manosphere for sure. He’s got issues with women, but particularly Catholics and the McKenzie women specifically. He’s violent, crafty and will stop at nothing to make sure he beats them in their quest. I loathed him and I was turning the pages desperate for him to have some sort of comeuppance. This is a pacy and tense novel with lots of action scenes and some moments of real danger where you’ll be biting your nails. It has great historical detail too and is bolstered by a fascinating afterword. The quest made me think of Queen Victoria in a different light, she may have been a powerful Queen but was she ever a feminist? Would she be the worthy Queen or was she too wrapped up in portraying the Victorian ‘Angel in the House’ ideal? It seems quite a tame way of ruling when we think back to the Tudor Queens or Mary Queen of Scots and possibly still influences the image cultivated by the Royal Family we have today. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this story and as Araminta raced towards the treasure with Thom in pursuit, I wondered whether it would be what either of them were expecting? 

Out on 14th May from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

“History is a treasure chest of stories. I love them.”

Sara Sheridan works in a wide range of media and genres but mostly historical and especially the stories of women. She loves exploring where our culture comes from. In 2018 she remapped Scotland according to women’s history. Tipped in Company and GQ magazines, she was nominated for a Young Achiever Award. She has received a Scottish Library Award and has been shortlisted for the Saltire Book Prize and the Wilbur Smith Prize. Her work was included in the David Hume Institute’s Summer Reading list 2019. She has sat on the committee for the Society of Authors in Scotland (where she lives) and on the board of ’26’ the campaign for the importance of words. She took part in 3 ’26 Treasures’ exhibitions at the V&A, London, The National Museum of Scotland and the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. She occasionally blogs for the Guardian about her writing life, the Huffington Post about her activism as a writer and a feminist and puts her hand up to being a ‘twitter evangelist’. From time to time she appears on radio, and has reported for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent from both Tallin and Sharjah. Sara is a member of the Society of Authors and the Historical Writers Association. A self-confessed ‘word nerd’ her favourite book is ‘Water Music’ by TC Boyle. In 2016 she cofounded feminist perfume brand, REEK: artefacts from the project are now held at the National Museums of Scotland and the Glasgow Women’s Library.

Posted in Netgalley

The Secret Thread by Eve Chase 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I think Eve Chase’s books get better every time and I absolutely adored her last one, The Midnight Hour. There are elements of the same nostalgia in this book too as we’re introduced to Mimi Mott, interior designer and fashion icon who is in London preparing for an exhibition and auction of some of her oldest belongings. Jo is a journalist, desperate for a break and responds to an advert for an assistant to help Mimi with her exhibition artefacts. Once Mimi has chosen an object, Jo will note down her memories and then write some copy for the exhibit. She and Jo click immediately and she’s set to work straight away. However, Jo had her reasons for wanting this job and if Mimi finds out what they are and who Jo is she could be in a lot of trouble. She would also be in trouble with her grandmother who has no idea what her new job entails or who it’s with. As she treads this tightrope we’re taken back into the 1960s and Mimi Mott’s past. 

We know what we’re getting with Eve Chase, usually an ancestral home or a family with big secrets and here we get both. The story is told in a dual timeline, the present shows us Mimi and Jo working on the exhibits and a little bit about Jo’s life. The past takes us back to the 1960s when Mimi was plain Miriam Bramley and came from a family of gardeners working at Rushwood for the Caswell family. Over the summer, the Caswells are having a huge party and the younger members of the family, Nancy and Lawrence, are back for the summer. Miriam is the youngest in her family with the twins, Pamela and Alfred being nearer to the Caswell’s age. The old hierarchy of master and servant has been diluted a bit, but Miriam’s father is old school. He doesn’t want his children confusing things by mixing with the Caswells. It’s partly that they should know their place, but also that they can only be disappointed by moving in those upper class circles. However, Mrs Caswell is American and less constrained by class and these are teenagers who have their own ideas about things. Swimming down in the river on a hot evening, Miriam feels a spark with Lawrence and Alfred is absolutely besotted by Nancy who is beautiful and always taking photographs. Things become even more tense when Miriam becomes interested in the work being done to get the house staged for the party and meets Whipple, a London based interiors specialist who needs an assistant. It might as well be Miriam who has a good eye and can use a sewing machine. Her father isn’t keen but Miriam knows this could be her big break into the business. After that summer everything changes for both the Bramley and the Caswell family, but the author keeps us guessing as to what tragedy could still be affecting the family sixty years on? 

I enjoyed the changing class constraints of the 1960s with Mr Bramley’s upstairs/ downstairs approach to his work. The change really is led by Nancy who thinks the class barriers are wrong and ends up inviting the Bramley siblings to the party. I felt for the young Mimi who is so ambitious because there was a time I was the same. I could see women of my mum’s generation stuck after giving up work when they got married. I didn’t want to be dependent on another person and I wanted to explore who I could be. Mimi knows that eventually she will have to leave because she’s not like her sister Pam who seems happy with her fate of keeping her hands in the soil, marrying someone like her dad and producing another generation of hard working Bramleys. Their dad doesn’t want them to mix with the Caswells because no good will come of it. He doesn’t want Mimi to work with Whipple because the Bramleys have always been gardeners. I was rooting for Mimi’s big break and cheered her on when she breaks away from tradition. Would she get her dream career and the man though? As we see the older Mimi we have some of the answers and she’s certainly a huge success, exuding quiet luxury and incredible taste. She is a household name. I felt like she got what she wanted because she dared to reach for it. Jo is similar because she’s willing to work hard for what she wants. However she feels terrible for deceiving Mimi and starts to question how much she’s strayed from the good person she thought she was. What happens when the final piece of copy is written? 

I struggled a little with Mimi’s sister Pamela because of the way she punishes Mimi for her ambitions, whether they’re for a career or for a man who’s out of their reach. Just because working the soil and marrying a man like her father is perfect for Pamela, doesn’t mean it’s right for her sister. She also gets to keep her family because she’s seen as the ‘good sister.’ I felt for her losses deeply, but Mimi loses everyone and has to rebuild in a bedsit on her own at first. There are visits but they’re few and far between and only when her father isn’t around. Jo is enjoying her work and finding Mimi’s version of the past intriguing and enlightening. She hates lying to her and dreads being discovered, not just because of their growing closeness, but because of Mimi’s driver Woody. He takes her home on nights she works late and she feels completely safe with him, as well as having the hint of a spark. As we countdown towards the auction the tension becomes impossible to manage. Her grandmother has brought Jo up, after the death of her parents, and she hates keeping secrets from her too. Although Pamela’s not been behaving like herself either, even making an impromptu trip to London which confuses Jo because she usually hates leaving home. 

Eve Chase knows how to create characters we care about and exactly when to reveal the secrets of the past for the reader to feel the full impact. It’s like dropping a bomb into these character’s lives and we know nothing can be the same again. There’s also the secondary impact in the present because of course Jo’s secrets must come to light too. When Mimi picks an object for the auction, and she and Jo talk about it, it’s easy to see how much it affects Mimi and conjures up memories of the past. She has always known how much power there is in objects from the moment she picks up a piece of crystal from a chandelier at Rushwood and Whipple encourages her to hold it up to the light and take it in: 

“a kaleidoscopic rainbow, every colour of Rushwood – stone, grass, willow, rose – caught in it’s mineral heart.” 

Each of Mimi’s fabric or wallpaper patterns has its genesis there, from the plants tended by her family to the objects at Rushwood and even her trip to the seaside with Lawrence. This is why we keep objects and I understand this so deeply because my house has the chesterfield leather chairs I used to sit in at my friend Nigel’s house, the first antique ginger jar my late husband and I bought to start a collection, a snow globe of New York from my 40th birthday trip and a little stone bird by my bed, part of a matching pair I shared with my friend Kathryn before she died. Mimi gets this human connection with the items we use to decorate our homes. Her auction will show the thread linking each piece to its place in her memory, no less powerful than Pamela’s continuation of the family’s tradition as a gardener. Even though everyone thinks Mimi has forgotten her family, I felt that she never forgot what happened that summer and has immortalised it through her life’s work. 

Out May 28th from Michael Joseph

Meet the Author

Eve Chase is million-copy bestselling novelist writing rich suspenseful novels. New novel, The Secret Thread. Also, The Midnight Hour, The Birdcage, The Glass House/The Daughters of Foxcote Manor (US), The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde/The Wildling Sisters (US) and Black Rabbit Hall.

Say hello @evepollychase on Instagram and Facebook

Posted in Squad Pod

Last One Out by Jane Harper 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Carrolan Ridge is a dying town. Ever since the Lentzer mining company decided to expand into the area everything has changed. Some people fought to keep the community together but as offers went out for homes and land surrounding the area of the new quarries, it was only a matter of time. At first they offered silly money and the people who took it were seen as traitors, then as the money dwindled more people took the hint. Now it’s a ghost town, only a few people left and a constant vibrating hum of mining activity. Ro left a while ago but she’s back for a few days, staying with her estranged husband Griff. He lives in the house they used to own while he works as Lentzer’s fire officer. It’s the annual memorial for their son Sam, who disappeared five years ago at the three houses where people held out as long as possible. The bungalow once belonged to his Uncle Warren, but Ro and Griff have no more idea why Sam was here than they did five years ago. Sam was researching the effect of industry on the town he was born in, interviewing the people who still lived there. He left his hire car half way up the drive and disappeared into thin air. It had been a tough time, Ro’s father was killed by a car and ten days later Griff’s brother Warren committed suicide in the quarry. The family were engulfed in grief and the worry over Sam, who wasn’t found. Ro only left when the medical centre closed. She was the GP for these people, now she’s an infrequent visitor, no longer able to stay in the place where they were a happy family. Griff can’t leave till he finds his son. When daughter Della arrives they’ll follow the same yearly ritual, but as ever Ro and Griff find their feet take them to where their son disappeared. Still looking for clues as to what went wrong. 

The author creates such a heavy atmosphere around this small town, driven home by the constant vibrations and the sound of trucks thundering up and down the road. When Ro visits the three houses at the quarry’s edge, a woman is there maintaining the biggest house unable to watch it become derelict. Ro observes it would have been better to demolish them all. There’s constant dust, in the houses, on their cars and in the air. It feels as if the quarry is pressing down on residents and it’s emotionally draining. There’s the claustrophobia that comes from being oppressed and the empty parts of town feel ghostly with Ro hearing a weird clanging noise when she ventures in. The longer people have stayed the worse their lifestyle has become: there’s nothing for children to do; people have to travel for medical help and essentials; the pub only opens once in a while. The author has created an atmosphere where people no longer trust each other. Those who tried to save the town are resentful of those who left early and made good money. Now their houses are worthless and there’s nothing to look forward to, as soon as they can teenagers leave for better prospects. One shrine stands to the old town and that belongs to Bernie, the father of Griff’s friend Noah. It’s a shack that he built with his son and it is full of keepsakes people have brought from places closed down. Even this is rundown and full of dust. It feels like the last gasp of a town on its knees and the repository for all its sadness. 

Ro is intelligent, resilient and a survivor. She knew she had to leave in order to live, not to forget Sam but to have a life without reminders at every turn. We can see this happen as she catches up with friends and they gather at the pub. While having a drink Ro slips into nostalgia, remembering their wedding day and dancing in this very bar. I could see why she left as the days passed, the frostiness between leavers and stayers is so evident and everyone wants to remember Sam, which is lovely but Ro almost wants to have him to herself. Everyone grieves in their own way and I could feel the tension building at the memorial which has become a public event and Ro doesn’t enjoy that part of it. Her walk with Griff, along the path where it’s believed Sam must have got into trouble, is much more private. Each of them thinking their own private thoughts and respecting each other’s need for silence. She’s a natural investigator, which possibly comes from her medical training. She looks around with suspicion, knowing that someone must know something. She reads his notebook again, looking for clues in the last interviews he did and noting anything of interest. Sam is a very real character in the book, although he isn’t present. The sunflower seeds Ro finds in the house that he carefully saved for her garden, the respectful way he treated everyone he interviewed and his emotional intelligence shine out. Sam, Darcy and Jacob were always a three, but after Sam has been away at university he realises that he’s changed and they’ve become closer to each other. He’s invested in what happened at Carrolan Ridge but he knows it’s not his future. However, I could see from his research that he’s asking dangerous questions. He may be a gentle interviewer but he’s still asking people to face their choices and question the decisions they’ve made. Some of his subjects might have found that very difficult to do. 

I felt like Ro still loved her husband. In fact they have a lot of respect for each other and make quite a formidable team. There is a section about her garden at the house, where she’d grown vegetables in containers and loved pottering at weekends. She can barely go and look at what it’s become and it’s almost become entwined in her mind with the town, something that’s broken and dying; ‘what she wanted didn’t exist anymore, she knew, and the sad, pale husk of it’s memory would only make things worse.” She’s surprised to find it flourishing and full of flowers when she goes to plant her sunflower seeds. It made me quite emotional to think of Griff doing that, almost as if he’s tending the garden since he can’t work on his marriage. Ro needs to have the realisation that just because Griff stayed doesn’t mean he loved Sam more or loved her less, it was just the only choice he could make in his grief. This is a slow burn novel but it needs to be so the author can properly explore the complexities of the town’s relationships, the different perspectives between generations and who, if anyone, wanted to harm Sam. As the pressure built towards the end I was desperate for Sam’s family to find him, and for Ro and Griff to reach an understanding too. Clues start to appear and I couldn’t put the book down till I knew. The story didn’t end how I expected but it was so good to finally have a flashback, to follow Sam on that day and discover what happened. It was a satisfying ending and made absolute sense, even though I hadn’t expected it at all. This is an excellent slow burn thriller in an incredibly atmospheric setting, exactly what I’d expected from this brilliant author. 

Out 23rd April 2026 from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Jane Harper is the author of The Dry, winner of various awards including the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the 2017 Indie Award Book of the Year, the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year Award and the CWA Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 2017. Rights have been sold in 27 territories worldwide, and film rights optioned to Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne.

Posted in Netgalley

Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It was the place they all knew best – the elegant light-filled rooms in the house, plus its niches and nooks in which they took refuge, the wood which sheltered the wildlife, the fields over which they walked. Whatever happened at Woodspring, and whether they lived there or not, the notion of it remained constant. Since the house was built in 1810, the Danes have always lived at Woodspring. Over the generations it has given them shelter, solace and joy.

War brings change, and the next three generations of the family will lead very different lives. Peace is shattered, pain is unavoidable, loves are found and lost, but Woodspring is constant, and will always draw them back….

A tender novel of love, refuge and the question of where we call home when life takes us on unexpected paths, Woodspring is a beautiful ode to the countryside, to family, and to our timeless connection to place.

This novel is told through three chronological sections, each covering a generation of the Dane family who own Woodspring, a small but grand country house. Built at the turn of the century, it’s a house that never seems to change substantially while the world races forward. We see those changes through the people who live there: Harry is the owner of the house in the 1930s in the lead up to WW2; Nell becomes the owner in the latter part of the 20th Century; Joey owns the house and estate in the present. Through them we see massive changes in class, affluence, and women’s rights but also the far reaching consequences of the Second World War. Each section feels like a vignette of that time, but in the second and third sections we can see how the choices Harry made affect future generations. All the while, Woodspring sits as a sort of haven and seems steadfast while our character’s lives feel transitory and fragile.

I was deeply drawn in by Harry and Faith’s story in the first section, made more powerful by the backdrop of war and the risks taken by both of them. Harry is married as the book begins, the perfect match in his parent’s eyes for the duty of looking after the estate. They have a daughter called Nell who is just a toddler. Their relationship was never a grand passion and a rather old fashioned marriage in terms of her being the right sort, but her family connections are in the USA. If the truth is told she has never taken to Woodspring, finding it a bit quiet and gloomy. There’s also very little to do in such a small village. As war approaches and Harry puts himself forward for active duty, Wendy wonders whether she and Nell would be safer returning to family in the USA. No promises are made from either of them, not even an assumption that their lives will resume as normal afterwards. No one knows what afterwards will look like. Harry departs for the Highlands and training for the Commandoes. It’s in the midst of this tough training period that his wife writes that she would like a divorce. She has met a man who is wealthy and can keep her and Nell provided for. I was amazed at the lack of shame in her openness about marrying this man for his money, but she’s also seemingly oblivious about Harry’s feelings for his daughter. However, when Harry meets Faith he knows deep within and for the first time, that he is in love. They make no promises, but give themselves wholly over to each other in an incredibly tender meeting at a secluded bothy. Each knows the other might not survive this war, but in case they lose track of each other he gives her a name in London. Suggesting that if her employment finishes in Scotland, she can contact them for lodgings and work. Would they ever find each other again? Meanwhile, as Harry’s younger brother also joins the same regiment, Woodspring waits patiently for their return.

Our second section follows Nell, Harry’s daughter, who has lived her early life in America, but now works in Geneva in a very high stress job for an NGO. She implements the response to humanitarian crises around the globe and lives alone. It’s a total shock when she receives news that she has inherited Woodspring from her largely absent father, Harry. Nell negotiates a few weeks away from work to travel to England and decide what she must do with the house and land. She’s shocked to find a largely unchanged house, complete with a couple who work as housekeeper and all round maintenance man. It’s weird for this very modern woman to be treated as the mistress of the house, who eats at certain times and always in the dining room. The housekeeper explains that although her father died years ago, he had made provision for her Uncle Robert to live there until his death. He had sustained a brain injury in the war and was often very childlike, keeping a strict routine helped and the time he spent with his huge model railway in the attic. It’s when she goes up to investigate the attic that she meets Joey and falls in love, but not in the way you might expect. Her feelings start to change as she sees what this house represents – home, stability, a memorial to her family and a huge project to work on. Will she sell and move back to Geneva or will her heart keep her here?

Finally we come to the present and meet a girl called Mia who works for MI5. Independent and determined, she is utterly focused on her career when Joey walks into her life. Joey is a vet, working in London and living in a small apartment. However he tells Mia about a family home and land he owns, left by his mother. One weekend they drive to Woodspring and for the first time Mia sees the huge responsibility Joey has been carrying. The main house is now a nursing home, while Joey lives in the flat over the stables that used to be home to the housekeeper and her husband. It’s the land he has to come to some decisions about, with offers from developers on the table, Joey doesn’t know whether to sell the whole estate and commit to life in London, but there’s something about being on this land. It’s a sense of security and connection with the land that I understood. I have lived most of my life next to the River Trent, literally having the bank in our back garden as a child to my first flat where the bank was only a field away and to my last home, a little barn conversion on the Lincs/Notts border where a short lane took me to the bank in ten minutes. The first thing I did was walk down there, take off my shoes and stand at the top of the bank. Whenever I want to feel that security and connection I do the same thing, grounding myself.

I felt that the last section suffered a little in comparison to the first two, perhaps because of their more dramatic events or circumstances. WW2 tears people apart, forcing them to live an alien existence, often alone and in very different parts of the world. We see the hardship of Harry’s training and his incredible resilience in being able to survive when it’s put to the test at Dunkirk. The war definitely heightens those tender feelings between Harry and Faith, so when he’s is back in London and goes to look for her my heart was racing. The dramatic events of that night are written so vividly that I knew the outcome would determine the rest of their lives. The horrors of the Blitz are depicted so well a I felt like I was there. Nell’s story shows her work is once removed from her father’s but still vital, organising a response to terrible events around the world means she doesn’t get to be there in person to see the devastation. We can also see the impact of her mother’s choice to remarry in the USA and having a mostly absent father. Nell’s mother is as self absorbed as a I suspected, pursuing the preservation of her looks with plastic surgery and pushing Nell to accept a job with her stepfather and come home – an offer that Nell rejects with so much vigour I sensed some tension around their relationship. Joey changes everything for her and she has to face her own childhood demons, her decision not to have children and a growing love she never expected. Her instinct to shelter and protect Joey is almost instinctual and I felt like the time she spends at Woodspring brings her closer to understanding the man her father was.

As for the final part I was expecting it to come from Joey’s perspective so I was a bit surprised to meet a completely new character. Mia is an interesting woman, in some ways like Nell in her independence and determination to do well in what is still a bit of a man’s world. We are taken into a case she’s working and the complexities of that job and meeting someone who she could build a life with. Joey is a calm, solid and patient presence in her life which tells us a lot about his background. If they’re to build a life together they also have to factor in the ownership of the Woodspring estate, which overwhelms Mia when she first sees it. They are left with land, including a wood, and Mia can see potential in it but how will they make it work. I felt sad to imagine it broken up into parts, but it may be the only way to keep some of it. What’s never in doubt through, is Joey’s connection with this land that’s exactly the same as my connection to the River Trent. I was desperate for him to retain some part of it because he belongs there and we can see it in the way he’s replenished after going back to visit. It’s his connection to Nell, to her father and mostly Robert who he came here to play trains with when he was a little boy. Woodspring is his constant in a world that is often frightening and overwhelming: each generation’s touchstone. This is a touching and gentle novel, exploring our connections to each other but also the places we call home.

Out Now from Atlantic Books

Posted in Netgalley

The Family Friend by Claire Douglas 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is a cleverly plotted thriller by the author, designed to grab your attention and keep the questions coming. Imogen has lived with her boyfriend Josh since they were teenagers. She doesn’t have a big family because of a terrible incident in her past, her father was convicted of killing her mother after a Halloween party. With her father in prison, Imogen is lucky to have older sister Alison who put her life on hold to come back and look after Imogen until she went to university. We meet Imogen at a crossroads after a difficult time at work, she’s on indefinite leave from her job as an investigative journalist after a story led her into danger. She’s shocked to receive a phone call from a solicitor who asks her to come into their offices the next day. It would seem that her mother’s old friend Dorothea has died. Imogen remembers Dorothea very fondly after she took them in when her mum left her dad after years of abuse. Dorothea was a rather unconventional woman, an artist who worked with women who’ve suffered domestic violence using art therapy. Imogen has very fond memories of Dorothea’s large Victorian villa, complete with its own wood and studio. Imogen felt safe there, but it is still a shock to learn that this beautiful villa now belongs to her. As Imogen tries to come to terms with this legacy, questions start to form about Dorothea’s intentions. Was her death an accident? Who is the secretive author writing a book about her? What is contained in the underground bunker found in the wood? Imogen thinks all of this has something to do with her past and her investigative brain starts working. 

This author knows exactly how to grab a reader and keep you asking questions. She drip feeds the answers by taking us into Dorothea’s past and the reasons she worked with women affected by domestic violence. We go into her own marriage, her meeting with fellow survivors Annette and Rosemary and founding the charity that helped Imogen and her mum. I kept reading, waiting for the flashbacks to that night – the terrible night Imogen and Alison’s mum died. Although with her dad asking to see her from prison, maybe she will have to weigh up different versions of the truth. The author constantly drops little clues and hints such as the items hanging off one of Dorothy’s final sculptures hidden in the bunker. Imogen also finds a piece of expensive cloth torn and caught on a small opening created in the perimeter fence. Is someone watching Imogen or was Dorothea the target? There are also emotional clues in the present with a little red flag popping up around Josh, Imogen’s boyfriend. They’ve been together forever, so it seemed strange that she needed time away from him to process and explore her new home. He also seemed to assume some things, like wanting to take over Dorothea’s office without realising that Imogen is grieving and it’s a space very personal to Dorothea. I didn’t like the sulking and withdrawing when he didn’t get what he wanted. I wondered if the inheritance had made him feel insecure, after all it does belong to Imogen and not him. 

The character I enjoyed most was Dorothea who casts a long shadow over the book, despite being dead. I felt like she becomes Imogen’s saviour again, in many different ways. She has been such a creative woman, something I always admire, but also formidable. Learning some of her history makes us realise why she’s so self-reliant. As for Imogen, she didn’t grab me in the same way and I had a really hard time imagining her as an investigative journalist. I had to wonder whether she was a very different character at work and if so, why does she change at home. If we factor in the trauma of observing domestic violence in the home, it could be that the dynamic has conditioned her to avoid conflict and appear subservient. I felt the longer she was in Dorothea’s house the stronger she became and I hoped she was up to making some very hard choices. Her relationship with her sister Alison is interesting, because she had left home before the home environment worsened. When their father was arrested for their mother’s death, Dorothea offered to have Imogen but Alison wanted to keep her close. Was this a sister’s guilt, a need to keep them together, or was there something in Dorothea that Alison didn’t trust? As a result Alison does have a mum’s vibe with Imogen and it’s interesting to see that relationship develop over the course of the book. It’s very hard for Imogen to accept that Alison has visited their father, who still protests his innocence. This could definitely put a wedge between them. What I missed most was the perspective of Imogen’s mum and I would have loved a flashback into how she felt. 

I loved the feel of the house and it reminded me so much of a family friend’s house that we visited a lot as children. They had a horse and lots of other animals, so the house wasn’t spotless but they had art, books and so many beautiful things that I think it influenced my love of interiors and weird objects. It also gave me a yearning to learn and understand art and literature. This is what the summer at Dorothea’s does for Immy, it opens her up to ideas and ambitions she might not have had otherwise. I loved how the sisters come together to try and solve the puzzle of Dorothea’s art and how that closeness allows Imogen to confide in her sister about her concerns; how do we tell the difference between caring too much and control? There’s something about them becoming more open with each other that gives Imogen more strength and purpose. I did not expect to go where the author takes us at the end and I think  it was a brilliant idea. Anyone in our lives can be controlling and we must trust our good when it tells us something isn’t right. This was a great thriller, full of unusual twists and clues, plus some red herrings. I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the past with Imogen’s story and particularly the strengthening of the sister’s relationship. 

Out now from Penguin.

Meet the Author

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number one bestselling author of eight stand alone novels: The Sisters (2015), Local Girl Missing (2016), Last Seen Alive (2017), Do Not Disturb (2018), Then She Vanishes (2019) and Just Like The Other Girls (2020). Her seventh, The Couple At No 9 (2021) was an Amazon number one bestseller, a number three Sunday Times bestseller and most recently hit number one on Germany’s Der Spiegel paperback bestsellers chart. The Girls Who Disappeared was a Richard and Judy book club pick for Autumn 2022 and was an instant number one Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been published worldwide.

Posted in Netgalley

Based On A True Story by Sarah Vaughan 

Posted on 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.

Posted in Netgalley

Getting Away by Kate Sawyer

Posted on 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.

Posted in Netgalley

 Wreck by Catherine Newman 

Posted on 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.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Keeper by Tana French

Posted on 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.

Posted in Publisher Proof

Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra

Posted on 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