Tag: Family

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

What do you do when you’ve ruined your life? You go home to your mother, if you’re lucky enough still to have one. Saoirse Maher wouldn’t recommend it. 

Leaving home wasn’t supposed to be temporary. When she moved to London, Saoirse was leaving Ireland behind for good, and with it her messy, broken family. But it turns out that starting again isn’t as easy as she imagined, and when her five-year relationship goes south, Saoirse finds herself out of options. And so here she is, trudging back to her mother Máire’s house up a side road on the outskirts of Irish civilisation. 

Except the world she comes back to is nothing like the one she left behind. Her mother has a new family, and everyone else seems to be moving on. But between the drinking, drugs, and an entirely healthy, not-problematic-at-all-thanks relationship with Charlie, there’s plenty to distract her.

Don’t look too closely, and everything’s fine. Saoirse is just fine. 

This was one of those books where the narrative voice captures you straight away and you know you’ll follow wherever she takes you. Saoirse is in her early twenties, newly returned to a small town in the Irish midlands when her big life in London doesn’t go as planned. Now back under the roof of her mother, her second husband JJ and their three perfect daughters, all Saoirse can see is the difference between the mother her little sisters have and the mother she had at the same age. Back then Máire was young and struggling, with a husband who’d rather drink his wages than bring them home to his wife and child. In fact Saoirse can remember being in her mother’s car, driving from pub to pub to look for him. There was so much drama between her parents she might as well have been invisible. When she contrasts this with Lily, Grace and Emilia’s life she can see the difference but she can’t understand it; are they just more lovable than her? She notices the way her mother Máire dotes on them, puts their hair into identical plaits but stops short of identical clothes, reads to them at night and makes sure they’re cared for and these small expressions of love hit Saoirse like poison darts. Her sisters even get to call her Mammy, something that Máire was very clear about:

“I was christened Máire Lynch. Not Mammy. That is not my name. I won’t speak to you if you don’t use my name.”

Sometimes she wonders if the impression she has of their relationship is distorted but then she remembers Granny Lynch, the person who cared for her most asking her aunt to give her some leeway; ‘leave her be, you’ve met her mother.’ Granny’s is the only place she had stability and felt loved for herself, just for existing. Even now, at the age of 24, Saoirse feels her mum’s bite as she bullies her out of bed in the morning, insists she does an interview for the local hardware store and is insistent that JJ shouldn’t have to keep her. Saoirse just wanted a few days grace to gather her thoughts and adjust, but now she’s everything she didn’t want to be, living back with her mother in a small Irish town and doing a job that has no meaning and pays enough money to get by week to week. Then, with her friend Doireann she spends it on alcohol and drugs to forget the tedium and disappointment of life for a few hours. She isn’t even allowed to express her disappointments because Máire is right there, ready to tell her what it was like to be her age with a baby and an alcoholic husband. The author uses wit and humour, even within the darker themes and here Saoirse talks about the ‘overarching theme of the Annual Irish Suffering Olympics’. If you complained about a broken toe, someone else had lost their foot in a mowing accident, so you should ‘get over yourself’. This was such a familiar moment of Irish family humour that it made me smile. 

It’s easy to forget Máire’s struggles because Saoirse’s voice is so compelling. It’s no wonder her mother enjoys the routine and stability of her relationship with JJ after the turbulence of marriage to Saoirse’s father. When Saoirse hits rock bottom her dad is briefly there for her, but it’s the first time. Although we concentrate on the mother/ daughter relationship, he has been completely absent in her life. He’s one of those Irishmen who are great at stories and for the craic down at the pub, but they don’t see the state he’s in at home and the way he chooses drink over his family again and again. He seems stable enough at the moment, living with his second wife and making bodhrains in his garden workshop, but he will always let her down. I was concerned that Saoirse would end up living her mum’s life, young, pregnant and with a partner who can’t be trusted. I felt so maternal towards Saoirse throughout and I could see that her lack of parental support left her craving love and acceptance. It’s like a huge hole that can never be filled. Unfortunately it also leaves her open to damaging relationships and when she meets Charlie, through Doireann and her on again off again boyfriend Connor, she falls headlong into tumultuous and possessive feelings.

I was holding on to hope that she could get her life back on track, even when it hits rock bottom and she wakes up in hospital. In the end she turns to counselling and one of the first things they talk about is that emptiness Saoirse feels where the love and support of a parent should be. One line of dialogue in the book broke my heart more than anything and it’s when Máire is throwing all her anger and resentment at her daughter. Their fight turns physical when Saoirse reminds her that she forgot she had a fourth child. When she asks her mother what she’ll tell her little sisters Máire says ‘I’ll tell them to be anyone but you.’ It’s so harsh it stopped me short. Of course in order to heal we look for closure and Saoirse has tried drugs, alcohol, relationships and acting out to fill that hole at her centre. The counsellor asks her some searching questions. What if that closure never comes? What if she doesn’t have a relationship with her mother? Somehow she has to learn to feel that uncomfortable absence without trying to fill it with other things. I felt there was hope that she would build self esteem, because even in the throes of first love she finds Doireann’s relationship with Connor uncomfortable. When she tries to clarify whether they are together or not, Doireann says they’re not ‘together, together’ but it’s great because they both get their space and they’re not making claims on each other. Saoirse is confused and asks Doireann who else she’s seeing, but she’s only seeing Connor while he’s seeing other girls. 

“So you do all the things a couple does without the security of knowing you’re not going to get cheated on.”

Of course she could be cheated on whether in an official relationship or not, but the need to point out that only Connor benefits from their arrangement shows that Saoirse does have some expectations and standards. She knows she doesn’t want that kind of relationship. She wants boundaries, exclusivity and respect it’s just that her desperate need for love and acceptance means she settles for less. She also knows that her own capacity for love is immense, saying she would tear herself down to make sure Charlie grew because ‘it was just my way.’ Luckily at this point she moves in with Doireann and her family and sees a totally different way of parenting, a seemingly natural maternity in her mum Karen who struggled to become a parent and sees her daughter as something of a miracle. Saoirse notices that they have saved mementoes of every milestone in their daughter’s life and yet are still able to listen and support her plans to move away from home. When Karen’s had a hard shift at the hospital, Saoirse listens and makes her a cup of tea and Karen tells her she’s a ‘good girleen’ but the compliment is so alien to her she doesn’t know what to do with it. Being mothered makes her realise how complicated it is and opens up the guilt, anger, resentment and thoughts that she could ‘fuck up’ her own daughter. Yet she’s already thinking about how to stop repeating the pattern. 

This is a remarkable debut. Every single character felt completely real and the author has captured the awkward vulnerability of youth and a girl who has never had that parental safety net that allows her to experiment and work out who she is. The language is beautiful too from the viciousness of a resentful parent, to the delirium of drug addled parties and the tedium of the hardware store. She describes a silence between her and her mother as weighing on her like ‘wet wool’ and I could feel its heaviness. It all rings true and struck a chord with me about my own teenage years and not always being understood. Some of the descriptive passages are so layered they create tiny moments of stillness within the turbulence becoming passages to breathe in. I found myself responding to the book bodily, so immersed that when the author described a panic attack I realised I was holding my own breath. I felt sad, angry and deeply maternal towards Saoirse and with my counsellor head on I wanted to help. I wanted her to see that she wasn’t the sum of her parents and all the bad things that had happened, that even in the darkest moments there is a tiny spark of light. Any writer that can make a reader feel so much for her characters and their journey is special and I can’t wait to read what Caragh does next, but for now I know Saoirse will be staying with me for a while. 

Out now from OneWorld Publications

Caragh Maxwell is a writer living in Sligo town. She graduated from the Trinity College MPhil in Creative Writing in 2023, and her essays, poems and stories have been published in The Irish Times, The Cormorant and other publications. Her writing focuses on the self, memory, and womanhood. Sugartown is her debut novel, and was shortlisted for the 2025 A Post Irish Book Awards.

Posted in Netgalley

The Glass Key by Amanda Geard

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“They do say secrets are revealed one funeral at a time.”

I absolutely adored Amanda’s previous novel The Moon Gate, set at the outbreak of WW2 and straddling Australia, Ireland and the UK. This time she starts her story in Ireland, where Maggie has grown up hearing her mother tell her the bedtime story of The Glass Key. It’s a Nordic fairytale passed down by Maggie’s grandmother Anna Swan, who mysteriously left her home one stormy night years ago, never to return. Now Maggie’s grandfather has died and going through his things, Maggie is shocked to discover a faded wartime letter, asking him to take in a baby. In that moment she realises that Anna Swan was a woman of many secrets.

Only by travelling to Norway and discovering the story of four brave young women whose lives were forever changed by the occupation of their tiny islands, can Maggie uncover the shocking truth about her family – and finally unlock the mystery of the glass key…

There are many historical fiction novels looking at women’s lives during WW2, but I hadn’t read any set on Norway’s many islands, so it brought a different perspective and an atmospheric setting to the story. People becoming displaced and lost during WW2 is close to my heart as my late husband was Polish and both of his parents were displaced during the war: Hannah escaped Warsaw as a small child in the sewers and ended up alone at a Scottish school for refugee children. Whereas Alek was taken to Siberia by the Russians, but somehow escaped and ended up living in the Siberian forests before making his way to England through the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. These individual family stories have huge impact through the generations. Hannah’s dad believed his family to be dead and made his way to America where he remarried. Hannah then had a half-sister in Washington who she only discovered decades later. Amanda shows the chaos of war, not just on the battlefield but in ordinary everyday lives and it brings home how impossible it was to escape the war’s grasp. Through Maggie’s family and four extraordinary women in the Norwegian islands we can see how far the war reached, in fact it’s only for one afternoon on an uninhabited island that the women could let go and clear their minds. Around these archipelagoe there are tiny bays and secret places that are impossible to police, especially when up against local knowledge. It’s no surprise that the allies would use it as the perfect spot for secret assignations. Small boats can be missed in fog and poor weather conditions and although Germany annexed Norway, they haven’t reached these remote places yet. But there’s no doubt they’re coming. 

The narrative is a dual timeline split between wartime Norway and modern day Ireland. In Ireland Maggie has had to come home after her grandfather’s death because his home at Hellebore House may have to be sold. Her grandfather Atticus lived there with his Norwegian wife Anna. Anna spent many years in the garden, cultivating Norwegian plants and flowers. She left when Maggie’s mother Freja was young, with no explanation. Maggie’s first instinct, now Atticus is gone, is to try and save the house but as she goes through his things letters from Freja’s mother are hidden away, sketches of Norwegian flowers and a painting of the island of Einevar that she’s never noticed before. The key is a photograph of three young women and a man lying in the grass surrounded by wild flowers. On the back are four names: Liv, Nina, Astrid and Lief and the place, Lyosa. How might these people be connected to her great-grandmother Anna? As Maggie becomes more curious about her family’s past, she also has to face her own past in the shape of first love Jack who has moved back to the area. She doesn’t need to complication as she’s still healing from her divorce and the knowledge that she’s infertile. The Norway narrative is told chronologically as we meet sisters Nina and Liv, their friend Gudrun and a new teacher called Astrid who’s been sent from the mainland to work alongside the formidable school mistress Froken Henrikson. Nina and Liv soon make friends with Astrid after they’re introduced by Gudrun. All the women know the Germans are getting closer and when they find a British man injured in a small boat they assume he is carrying out some secret mission. His appearance sets up a love triangle between him and the fisherman Lief who absolutely adores Liv, but are those feelings reciprocated? Meanwhile, Astrid and Nina are becoming much closer too. When the Germans do arrive, it’s two brothers called Grimm and a man called Bruno Schmitte who is an artist. The tiny population of Einevar can’t predict how the islanders will respond to a German presence. There are those who will resist and place themselves in danger and others who will fall in line, causing a fracture between young people who’ve known each other all their lives. Their last uncomplicated day was spent on Lyosa when, for one afternoon, the friends lie in the sun and don’t think about the war. 

There are brilliantly layered and complex characters here, particularly the women. Astrid is brave, very sure of who she is and her feelings. She’s loyal to those she loves and to her country, becoming very close to the sisters, especially Nina. Liv is young and headstrong, placing herself and others in dangerous situations. Lief has adored her for his whole life and will do anything for her, but will that loyalty place him in harm’s way? Liv shelters and nurses an allied agent who drifts onto Einevar having been attacked by German fighters, until he’s fit for the voyage back, knowing that if found out she and Nina would likely end up in prison. I loved how independent the Norwegian women seemed to be, able to sail, weather the elements and forage for themselves. It’s not an easy life, even before the war starts and they are determined to resist the Germans in any way they can. Not everybody on the island thinks this way though, with some becoming close to the German brothers despite it being an affront to family and friends. I did wonder if I could be so brave as to fend for myself without basic utilities and forced to fish or forage for food. These women are so in touch with the land, with its incredible night sky with endless stars and curious Northern Lights. Maggie gets a taste of their lives when she arrives at the cabin in Lyosa to do her family research. It’s like walking back in history with no electricity or running water and gives her an experience of what previous generations had to face just to survive. I also admired the bravery of those who continued to resist despite knowing their capture would mean death or imprisonment and torture. 

Motherhood is also a huge theme in the novel, starting with the shock of great-grandmother Anna leaving Freja behind with her father when she was just a child. What caused her to flee and why did Atticus never try to find her? There are many different representations of motherhood, from women who leave their babies, to infertility and being a mother to someone else’s child. If Maggie and Jack were to become close again she has the prospect of being a stepmother while not being able to have her own children, something that echoes through the generations.  These women are linked by those experiences but also their talents, such as Freja’s Nordic fairy tales for children once told to her by her mother Anna. Maggie’s creativity also links back to a previous generation, with Liv’s drawings and a book of botanical sketches uncovered to Hellebore House. I loved how the author showed the war’s reach and how one tiny uninhabited island gave the young women a chance to let go of it for just one afternoon. Maggie is the conduit for all the drama of WW2 and these sections of the book are nail-biting in parts. Maggie’s present is more gentle and flows beautifully, resolving the secrets kept for three generations and in a way I didn’t expect. Amanda’s novels are real favourites of mine and this had everything – family secrets, hidden letters, forbidden relationships, espionage and some incredibly brave women who sacrifice everything for the people they love. This is a fascinating read should be on every historical fiction fan’s summer list. 

Out now from Headline Review

Meet the Author

Hi, I’m Amanda, and I absolutely cannot WAIT to share my latest novel with you.

THE GLASS KEY is a tale very close to my heart and inspired by the Norwegian Arctic island my husband and I bought when we were 29. Evie Woods said it’s ‘a captivating story that unlocks an emotional doorway to the past’, and well, I love that.

If you’re new to my work, you might like to start with THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE, inspired by a message I found scratched into the rafters of our Irish home, a two-hundred-year-old stone building perched on the edge of the Atlantic. The book was a Richard & Judy book club pick and translated into 8 languages. 

THE MOON GATE uncovers the secret behind a mysterious legacy – Towerhurst, an old house crumbling in a rainforest. It takes place across three locations: Tasmania (my home state), London (where we rented a houseboat for many years) and County Kerry, Ireland (where I now live). THE MOON GATE is my most sweeping and beloved book.

I’m also a geologist who explores the world’s remote places. I’ve worked on five continents, and spend months at a time out in the wilds. Writing novels provides a similar sense of discovery, though the conditions rather more comfortable!

You’ll find me on my website, Instagram (@amandageard) and Facebook (@amandageardauthor). I love chatting with readers, so please come on by.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads June 2026

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’m writing this from a puddle of my own sweat and with a fan roaring in the background. Every animal has spread their body as far as possible across the wooden floor trying to keep cool. It’s been a stay at home month for sure as my neurological symptoms worsen when it’s hot, within a couple of days I had the texture of a wet noodle. So it’s been a month with lots of reading. I’m organised though, fans in both rooms I use a lot, ice cold water, lollies and ice chips, a neck fan and a handheld motorised fan that’s a god send. Nothing tells you that you’re middle aged more than a neck fan for Christmas. Especially when you’re pleased with it. I’ve been reading for the Squad POD Collective this month, then mainly NetGalley reads in between. There’s a huge range in these favourites as we go to Ireland, Liverpool, Norway, Italy and the US, from the aftermath of WW1 to the present day. There are family sagas, an incredible forbidden love story, a great start to a new crime series, the most talked about book on social media and finally a slice of whimsical joy from Matson Taylor. See you next month 📚

Look at that fantastic gothic cover! This is the dark and dangerous side to my favourite city as disgraced detective Mark Fletcher wakes up disoriented in the Castle Street Hotel. He’s horrified to find he’s in bed with a corpse, a man with a bullet hole in his head. How can he explain this when he has no memory of what happened last night? His finger prints and DNA will be everywhere, so will his disillusioned colleagues believe him if he calls it in? He can take his chances with his old team or he can run. This is the man who caught the Butcher of Bootle, only to watch his life rapidly fall apart nine months ago. Luca Veste takes us on a breathless chase through Liverpool while the crime team are playing catch up. We follow his old colleagues Kirkham and Abs as they investigate a body discovered in a garden in Kirby, making Brookside jokes along the way. Could these two deaths be linked? We’re also introduced to the Bonucci family, patriarch Salvatore and his second in command Gino and Frankie. Everyone knows the Bonucci family, they have legitimate business interests but underlying that is a criminal enterprise that’s seeped into every area of the city. They also blame Mark for the death of Salvatore’s youngest daughter Sofia, a huge lapse of judgement that went terribly wrong. Now Mark is trying to investigate who killed his bedfellow, Kirkham and Abs are 24 hours behind him, but could the Bonucci’s be closer? This is a nail-biting and action packed crime thriller that had me rooting for Mark from the moment he woke up. I loved the Scouse humour and the settings the author used as Mark jumps out of windows and even into the Mersey. The ending is such a shock and very clever indeed. I’m already waiting for the next book.

I’ve not written my full review on this but I can’t stop thinking about it and I’m dying to talk to other people for their opinion. We are introduced to Natalie, a trad wife influencer in the US with a hugely successful social media business and merchandising from their ranch Yesteryear. Natalie espouses the traditional life where the man is the head of the household and the woman looks after the home and their ever growing family. Her husband Caleb works the farm, while she runs the business with the help of two nannies and a producer. The monetisation paradox is clear to see, she’s making a living by preaching values that she doesn’t live by. Natalie wants her followers to embrace her trad view on family life, but has turned her ideology into a successful business run by a woman. Followers can watch her baking bread or collecting eggs from the chickens, but they don’t see her childcare or the producer who live on the isolated ranch with the family. Thanks to some clever remodelling of the house they also have all mod cons, but hidden from view with clever screening. Natalie tells women they should submit to their husbands, while agreeing privately that her own is an idiot. Without her this family would be lost. At university Natalie kept herself to herself, noting her roommate’s promiscuity and feminist viewpoint knowing she would become one of the ‘angry women’. Women who think they can have it all – the career, the marriage, the home, the children – end up doing it all and no wonder they’re angry. She still criticises the angry woman; seemingly never realising that’s exactly who she is and that her life is unsustainable. One morning she wakes up when it’s still dark, she can hear children having breakfast in the kitchen. Why hasn’t anyone put a light on? As she makes her way into the kitchen she realises that it’s very basic and her children are eating by candlelight. Except they’re not her children. The oldest girl is looking after them, but she doesn’t know her. Then she sees Caleb, but there’s nothing behind his eyes. They seem to living a real pioneer life, with everything done by hand, no hidden gadgets or shortcuts, no staff, no filming. Is this a nightmare? Has she been imprisoned here? Has she time travelled? You will ask all these questions alongside Natalie as the author takes you back and forth from the internet friendly lifestyle she created and the real thing. The author has managed to make an unlikeable character incredibly compelling, asks questions of this strange world where everyone has a real life and an Instagram ready life, and challenges ideals that current US politicians are advocating for women. The minute you finish this book you will want to find someone else who’s finished it so you can talk.

It was lovely to spend some time this month in one of Faith Hogan’s warm and welcoming worlds, this time on an isolated Irish island called Pin Hill. In this small community, sisters Blythe and Rae grew up with their grandparents at the family hotel in Hope Square after the death of their parents. Blythe’s ambition in life was to train in hospitality at university and follow her grandad into the family’s hotel business. Rae on the other hand was more of ‘go with the flow’ girl, spending her time with friends rather than learning the family trade. Yet, when we meet the grown up sisters, life hasn’t turned out as planned. Blythe lives in her own guest house at Still Water House with handyman husband Kip and daughter Siggy. Rae’s husband Marcus has died and she’s living alone in the Hope Street Hotel, where she’s run the family business with her husband for many years. What happened to place these sisters at odds with their expectations, especially Blythe who lived and breathed the hotel. As always Faith has created some great characters here in the rather strident and opinionated Blythe and her quieter, less confident sister. Blythe’s actually a bit much in parts and I found her very hard to like. We’re taken back and forth to the women’s teenage years where the explanations lie and uncover the secrets and events that set them on the wrong paths. While in the present day, Rae is struggling to maintain the hotel alone and has discovered financial problems her husband covered up. Unfortunately they aren’t the only secrets about her marriage. She has the help and support of niece Siggy and refugee Danial who’s just moved to the island with his grandmother. Blythe is suspicious of both of them and becomes obsessed with Rae’s potential plans for the hotel, setting herself on a path to disaster. This was a lovely, warm novel with great moments of humour in between the sister’s broken relationship. This is the perfect summer holiday read.

First of all I have to mention that gorgeous Art Nouveau cover on this novel, matching perfectly with the time period which is post WW1. This is one of my favourite periods for historical novels because I’m fascinated with the pace of societal change that ranged across class, gender and sexuality. It’s also a period where mental health issues and disability became much more prominent. Many men came home from the war with amputations and facial disfigurements, changing their lives forever. Of course many men didn’t return and every family was touched by loss either on the battlefield or in the waves of Spanish Flu that broke out after Armistice Day. Into this period of seismic change, Rue Baldry has written a beautiful story of forbidden love that touches the heart. Our two narrators are Albert and Edgar, who are both at a boarding school but for different reasons, despite being close in age. Albert was demobbed and needed a job, so is working at the school as a gardener. He has been through so much, yet is only 19 years old. Edgar is 18, a schoolboy from the middle classes who has just missed active service and longs to train as a doctor despite his dad’s wishes. When they meet there’s an instant affinity between them and we’re drawn into their fledgling love. This is a book that’s so evocative of the era whether it’s the old-fashioned British private school or in hell of the trenches. I thought the exploration of a class divide between the two men was very well done too and represented the societal changes in post-WW1 England. It’s impossible not to be drawn in by this love story, especially poignant considering these men were paved the way for the more permissive society we have today. There is no better representation of love is love,

In Ireland, Maggie has grown up hearing her mother tell her the bedtime story of The Glass Key. It’s a Nordic fairytale passed down by Maggie’s grandmother Anna Swan, who mysteriously left her home one stormy night years ago, never to return. Now Maggie’s grandfather has died and going through his things, Maggie is shocked to discover a faded wartime letter, asking him to take in a baby. In that moment she realises that Anna Swan was a woman of many secrets.

Only by travelling to Norway and discovering the story of four brave young women whose lives were forever changed by the occupation of their tiny islands, can Maggie uncover the shocking truth about her family – and finally unlock the mystery of the glass key…

I’ve still to write my review for this one, but I enjoyed it immensely particularly the WW2 timeline in the Norwegian islands that I knew nothing about. People displaced and lost during WW2 is close to my heart as my late husband was Polish and both of his parents were displaced during the war. I loved how the author showed how far the war reached and how it was only on one tiny uninhabited island that the young women could let go of it for just one afternoon. Amanda’s novels are real favourites of mine and this had everything – family secrets, hidden letters, forbidden relationships, espionage and some incredibly brave women. This should be on every historical fiction fan’s summer list.

Last, but definitely not least we come to Matson Taylor, not only a great writer but an all round good egg. His knowledge of art. architecture, and ancient Rome gives us a fabulous summer setting for this standalone novel about found family in the eternal city. A wobble on a new Vespa has Clemmie and Monty literally bumping into each other on a bridge flanked with angels as the novel opens. Monty’s injuries aren’t too severe but mean he can’t work on the renovation job he has in Rome. Now without a roof over his head and needing to recover from concussion (at least he hopes that’s why he can hear Octavian the cat talking to him) Clemmie and her friend Floss offer their palazzo. In their very unique home he finds the rest, relaxation and the care he has needed for a long time. You’ll fall in love with Monty who really is one of life’s innocents or what me and my mum call ‘new people’ who are on their first incarnation in the world. What he does have are secrets and a private grief that he’s never shared. Matson brings him together with the caring aspiring writer Clemmie and her friend, the flamboyant retired actress Floss. Add to these eccentrics a pair of food smuggling nuns, a man who lives in a converted ice cream van and a little twinkle of magic too. I never want Matson to stop writing because where else would I find scenes of nuns going to a gay disco? Set in the 1970s where the height of fashion is Floss’s new avocado en-suite, dazzling Rome is brought beautifully to life and as always there are deep emotions at its core. This is a wonderful comfort read for the summer, especially for those of us who are staycationing.

Here’s next months tbr, if I don’t get distracted of course!

Posted in Personal Purchase

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’d seen so many extremely varied viewpoints on this book that I couldn’t resist dipping in and it was definitely worth the hype it’s received. I read it voraciously over two days, so excited and so confused towards the end I realised I’d read it too fast. I had to go back and force myself to read it slowly. Read either way, this really is a delicious story that has hit at exactly the right time in history. With the US administration rolling back women’s rights and rumours about the implementation of Project 25 it feels like we’re watching Gilead formed in real life. One of the most controversial online figures in this huge political move to the far right is that of the ‘trad wife’, a woman who lives her life focused solely on the home, children and obeying her husband who is always head of the household. This might come from a religious conviction or a political one, but social media is awash with trad wife influencers like Hannah Neelham who shows life at the family farm and cooking from scratch or Estee Williams who proudly declares a return to 1950s values where motherhood and domesticity are the priority. To me this feels like the logical extension of the late 1990s dating book ‘The Rules’, much lauded by Charlotte in Sex and the City. Single women were advised to keep their distance and mystery on the dating scene – with men naturally being pursuers they are more responsive to women who play hard to get. It also advocated withholding sexual contact and focusing on the man’s wants and needs. It stands to reason that any eventual marriage would also involve the man’s needs coming first and feminists are concerned that the current trad wife trend appears like a pop culture phenomenon, but is born of patriarchal policies that will set back women’s autonomy and authority by decades. Of course the obvious paradox here is the influencer’s monetisation of the trad wife lifestyle, promoting the concept of the man as sole breadwinner while simultaneously operating successful and lucrative online content creation businesses, often with merchandising and multiple staff. These women are highly driven and ambitious and this is where our main character Natalie is situated; right at the centre of the monetisation paradox. 

The story is told through Natalie in a compelling inner monologue that had me absolutely gripped, despite disliking her quite intensely. The author takes us back to her college days, where she keeps herself separate from her roommate and other students often with a condescending and superior attitude. She firmly believes she has the answer to why feminism isn’t working, labelling her roommate the archetypal ‘angry woman’ who thinks they can have it all but will only end up exhausted and dissatisfied. She marries Caleb and is pregnant before graduation, not finishing her degree. She’s married into a political dynasty, with Cal’s father hoping to start a presidential campaign soon. Obviously they are republicans and Natalie’s father in law does point out that Caleb could be perfect for politics, being an ‘idiot’ who has no direction and is easily controlled. It’s Natalie who gets the idea to run a ranch, scouting for suitable properties and approaching her father-in-law for funding. He agrees to give them the five million they need, but Nat must keep her end of the bargain and keep producing beautiful grandbabies. She sets out to sell the great American Dream on social media, giving her ranch the tongue in cheek name ‘Yesteryear’. Despite having no farming experience, the plans for are to keep livestock, grow vegetables and become self-sufficient. She sets out to represent their lifestyle as pioneers, deliberately choosing her decor accordingly and instructing builders to hide all their modern appliances behind doors and false walls. She starts out posting nostalgic pictures, but then expands to videos where she and the children cook from scratch or make items for the house. Before long she has a business on her hands and now she isn’t just hiding the appliances, but two nannies and a producer, not to mention the merchandising. What could possibly go wrong?

This is a book with some huge reveals, you won’t always know what’s going on and you won’t be able to put it down – I was even reading while cooking the tea. I was so involved that when Natalie wakes up one morning to find her home isn’t as she knows it I was completely discombobulated – we ended up with gluey spaghetti that night! There’s no electricity and she finds children in her kitchen eating breakfast by candlelight, but they’re not her children. Caleb looks like her husband but there’s nothing behind his eyes. She’s now living pioneer life for real and when she opens the cupboards to look for her appliances, there aren’t any. There’s no help either. Her eldest daughter Mary cares for her with something close to a resigned exasperation, making sure that even if Natalie is only sitting, she can still do laundry and churn butter. Imagine a more realistic version of Little House on the Prairie where you can never escape to a power shower or flushing toilet. Natalie asks herself what’s going on: is this a punishment for something she’s done, has she lost her mind or is this some sort of sick reality TV situation? Is God punishing her. She’s now a trad wife for real, but she definitely isn’t happy, nor is she making any money.

This book is so well written, incredibly ambitious and captures the zeitgeist. I didn’t like Natalie but found her inner voice almost hypnotic. She’s deliberately hiding her intelligence and business brain on screen, but makes the comment that her eldest daughter takes after her because she holds “her intelligence like a knife behind her back.”However, once she becomes a traditional wife for real Caleb is the head of the household and she realises that whatever their home situation men can opt out of chores and childcare with no explanation, whereas she’s being forced out of bed while unwell. I was intrigued about where her belief system comes from, expecting generational religious beliefs and trauma but her mother and sister, while religious, have compassion and the ability to accept changes to their world view. They have understanding and compassion, something that Natalie seems to lack and it is utterly damning when her mother asks her why it’s so hard for her to be kind. I was so angry about the hypocrisy, pushing her ‘lifestyle’ to an online audience of women while keeping, not only her modern applicances, but the help hidden. She must know she’s making women feel inadequate, taking their money and lying to them. Once you become a tool of the patriarchy you’re an enemy of your fellow women, even though she gives them lip service by repeating the Christian Nationalist narrative that a trad wife is equal to her husband in the eyes of God – her work is different but of equal value. How can they be equal when only one of them has autonomy and the final say? In fact she openly fears aspects of the real pioneer life, especially giving birth. She is also aware of the paradox: 

‘To be a wealthy Christian woman and maintain good standing, you needed to publicly disavow your luxuries in order to maintain possession of them.’ 

It’s only by pretending they have nothing, that she becomes rich. I think I kept reading because I was so desperate to see her carefully planned, fake world fall apart. At a time where feminists are debating whether they’d rather be alone with a man or a bear (and regularly choosing the bear) she pedals a dangerous rhetoric and any woman selling it is colluding with the patriarchy. On a day where I’ve seen yet another group of white British men on trial for raping a woman drugged by her husband, I’m not inclined to give any man that sort of power over me. This week a pregnant woman on holiday in Florida had an incomplete miscarriage and was still, days later, unable to get the procedure she needed to prevent infection. This is because she wasn’t in her home state and doctors in Florida were unsure on the legal position of performing a D and C operation thanks to ‘pro-life’ policies. Another woman who’d been informed that her baby was too malformed to survive outside the womb, was bombarded with hate on Instagram for choosing to end her pregnancy early. Female influencers can’t post on social media without facing a barrage of abuse from trolls. Thanks to all this, men like Andrew Tate and Christian Nationalist men in positions of huge power, I have a permanent level of inner rage. There should be a special level of hell for women who take up this cause and use their religious beliefs to make life harder for their fellow women. I let go a bit of that rage while reading this because it helped me remember that what we see online is like any other representation of real life – heavily edited and stretching the truth, if not an outright lie. Not only is this book addictive and inventive, but through Natalie, the author blows apart the whole hypocritical and dangerous industry as well as the Christian Nationalist ideology that espouses trad wives and I absolutely loved that. 

Out Now from Fourth Estate.

Meet The Author

Caro Claire Burke received her Master’s in Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is the co-host of Diabolical Lies, a politics and culture podcast. YESTERYEAR is her first novel.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Sisters of Hope Square by Faith Hogan 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

All Blythe Carney ever wanted was to become a hotelier and run her family’s business, the Hope Square Hotel. But fate, and her grandfather, intervened and it fell into her younger sister Rae’s lap, taking her dreams with it. Now Blythe owns Still Water House, the most exclusive guest house on Pin Hill Island, but she can’t help but feel she’s still not living the life she was meant to.

Rae Johnson had no interest in taking over the hotel, her dreams lay elsewhere, but when she ended up with the family business her sister had set her heart on, her sense of duty to continue their family legacy with her husband was too strong to ignore.

Now, fifteen years later, newly widowed Rae is struggling to keep the hotel afloat and she knows that selling it could be the final straw in her already fragile relationship with her sister.

What do you do when your sister lives the life that you’d set your heart on? And when the perfect storm is brewing, surely, it’s time to put aside the jealousy and disappointment that can tear a family apart, and fight for the future you have always dreamed of?

I love the joy and care in Faith Hogan’s writing and this has been a brilliant book to sit back and enjoy while we’ve been having a few weeks of very warm weather. Her characters always have so many layers and usually plenty of secrets and these women are no exception. I also feel like she cares about them and wants us to understand their journey. The author takes us back and forth in time to give us the story of the Hope Square sisters, Blythe and Rae. In the present Blythe runs a very successful guest house on Pin Hill Island, at Still Water House, the home she shares with husband Kip and daughter Siggy. By contrast her sister Rae lives alone in what was the family business and the only hotel on the island, the Hope Square Hotel. The sisters couldn’t be more different. Blythe has the drive and ambition of a great business woman whose only dream was to gain her degree and take over at the helm of the family business after her grandfather. Blythe runs a tight ship, even at home, and while she and Kip are an excellent team on the business side, of late there’s been some tension between them. Their main point of contention is Blythe’s treatment of their daughter Siggy who is a teenager ready to start planning the next stage of her life, perhaps going away to university? Blythe has closed her mind to this idea, she rarely lets Siggy hang out with other kids on the island and refuses any activity she believes is unsafe. Kip is becoming frustrated, not only does he feel taken for granted, he wants his daughter to be allowed to grow up. However, there is no reasoning with Blythe. Siggy often escapes to work at Hope Square with her Aunt Rae. Rae feels fragile, not surprising since she’s a recent widow, but there’s something more that seems to be keeping her paralysed, unable to make plans and move forward. She and Marcus didn’t have children so she values her precious time with Siggy, but her relationship with Blythe has never fully recovered since Rae and Marcus took over the hotel. How did this sequence of events happen? 

The author takes us back and forth in time with both sisters so we can see events and decisions that led us here, but she also uses it to let us in on secrets the sisters have kept from each other. We as readers have the full picture, so behaviour that seems unreasonable or excessive to other characters has some context for us. It’s very frustrating to see characters misunderstanding each other completely. One such instance is Blythe’s behaviour when a new resident comes to Pin Hill Island. Val and her grandson Danial are refugees, he’s eager to find work and she’s keen to join groups and make friends. Blythe’s behaviour around Val seems utterly irrational, but there must be a reason probably buried deep in the past. I found Blythe a challenge I must admit but I couldn’t quite believe she was just a hateful person. The major question that keeps popping up is why would the girl’s grandfather make the inexplicable decision to pass the hotel to Rae and her boyfriend Marcus? The answers will come, but needless to say there were some men in this book who needed a bit of reeducation. Meanwhile as Danial volunteers at the hotel for Rae to get some work experience, he and Siggy spend some time together. Could there be romance on the cards? If there is, Blythe will be definitely have something to say about it and I worried it would have implications for her relationship with her daughter.

All these misunderstandings and secrets are set against a picturesque backdrop on this isolated island. The incredible scenery is clearly what draws people to visit, but is there still enough to sustain two hotels? Blythe is determined to get in a tourist guide and in one of the best comic moments she has a guest from hell, who she suspects is an inspector. I have to admit I imagined Maggie Smith playing this role at her most imperious. The vision of Blythe having to tolerate smoking, moving furniture and waiting on this woman hand and foot made me laugh. Her eventual response to 48 hours of this treatment was priceless. There’s a lot of trauma to unpack here. There’s so much loss for both these women, even after they lost their parents. There are themes of bereavement, motherhood, domestic abuse and being a victim of crime as well as the central family feud. As always the author gives these subjects the depth they deserve and they do have impact especially when it’s a revelation from the past that gives us more insight into the characters. What I like is that she always keeps us hopeful, that there’s a chance for healing and light in what seems a dark world at the moment. As the tension and miscommunication builds I just wanted the two sisters to talk openly and honestly, but it reaches a dramatic conclusion I didn’t expect. This is a great summer read and something of an escape from reality, full of intrigue and family drama but with bucketloads of warmth and hope. 

Out now from Aria Books

Meet the Author

Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best seller. She is a USA Today, Irish Times Top Ten and an Amazon UK Number 1 Best Selling writer of contemporary fiction novels. Her stories have charmed readers around the world – she’s sold internationally and translated widely. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.

The Bookshop Ladies was shortlisted for an An Post Book Award in 2024.

The Sisters of Hope Square is her brand new summer read coming June 2026. It is a gripping and poignant story of two sisters divided by jealousy and disappointment who must put their differences aside to save the inheritance that drove a wedge between them decades earlier.

She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.

She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and their Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!

Instagram @faithhoganauthor

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Smallie by Eden McKenzie-Goddard 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Smallie adj. |smal·lie|
Definition: Caribbean (informal). Describing or relating a person from a small island; a small islander.

In 1961, nineteen-year-old Lucinda Brown travels to England in search of her son’s father, Clarence Braithwaite, who left Barbados to join the British army. But aboard the ship to Southampton she meets a man named Raldo who offers her a glimpse of a new life, a freer life. Bound by the memory of her son waiting at home, she chooses Clarence – realizing too late that war has made a stranger out of him.

Nearly fifty years later, Lucinda receives a letter from the Home Office that threatens to tear her world apart. Her children rally together to prove her legal arrival, and to do so they must track down an elusive man from her past, a man she wanted to love but instead lost, a man who now holds the key to her family’s future. Raldo . . . An exhilarating and expansive tale of a family thrown into collision with the Windrush scandal, Smallie shows just how easily the past can spill into our lives, even when – especially when – we think we’ve closed the door on it.

The author splits their timeline so in 2017 we see Lucinda’s children trying to make sense of the letter from the Home Office that states she has no leave to remain in the UK. Then we go back several decades to her early life in Barbados and her trip to the UK. This worked so well because we get to see the huge generation gap in her children’s incredulous response to the letter and Lucinda’s more mured response. They have lived in the UK all their lives and with their education and important jobs they’ve experienced racism but not in the same way their mother has. They don’t know that the system can fail. This is their first real sense of utter powerlessness. Whereas Lucinda has spent most of her life like a leaf in the wind. Her strict religious father would keep her at home with a life that revolved around church, chores and schoolwork. In fact it’s only her friend Sheila that manages to lure her out to a club, where she meets Clarence, a liaison that results in a hidden pregnancy and her son Reggie. Yet still her father calls the shots and when Clarence decides to emigrate to the UK she is only allowed to follow on the proviso that they marry, only then will her father release Reggie to join them. Then, on the voyage across she meets Raldo and their chemistry is immediate, he offers her a way out. When they reach the UK she can leave with him and his friend, avoiding Clarence. Will she make the decision to put herself or Reggie first? I couldn’t stop reading because in the 2017 timeline I was desperate to know whether her children would manage to find enough evidence for their mother to stay, but also I wanted to know who was the father of her children born in the UK? It’s cleverly plotted to keep you guessing, even when their father is present.  

I loved the moments of freedom that Lucinda has with Sheila, nights of jazz, dancing, laughing where she comes alive. Either in clubs or at house parties they forget the one room they share, the lack of money, the family they clean for and the way British people treat them. Sheila is older and wiser. She explains to Lucinda why their employer’s treat them differently. Both girls work for a cleaning company run by a friend and Sheila points out how differently she is treated compared to Lucinda. They speak harshly to Sheila and expect her to steal, whereas Lucinda is treated more politely. She explains what ‘passing’ means, the family treat Lucinda better because of her paler skin. She could pass as a white girl. Even so, neither of them can have bank accounts and decide to use the ‘pardner’ system. Every week they all put their wages into a pot that’s kept by the most trustworthy friend, then once a month they take it in turns to have the lump sum. It’s the only way individuals could buy a house and set down roots here. Strong communities were built from these bonds of trust. The group decide that Lucinda should look after the money, but her trustworthiness is dependent on whether Clarence decides to beat her or not, till she hands it over. She is being brought down by this relationship, but she still clings to the idea of Reggie making his way here to be a family. Yet every so often she sees Raldo, conducting buses or at the same party and that spark is still there. He brings her alive.

It seems inconceivable that someone who has lived in this country for most of their lives could be detained and placed in an immigration facility. Lucinda is placed in Yarl’s Wood and her children are falling apart. She is the foundation that supports them all. While they struggle to come to terms with the situation, Lucinda quietly gets on with it. The Home Office need proof that she arrived on a certain date, with her boarding pass or similar, but then also prove that she didn’t leave for a period of time. They are applying 21st Century rules to a time when paper tickets were damaged or thrown out, where jobs were cash in hand and there was no paper trial. As they desperately look around for people who could corroborate her account, they unearth more of their mother’s story. There’s betrayal, anger and bitterness that’s lasted over fifty years. Will they find this man called Raldo who looked after her boarding pass? As the date for the hearing looms closer, Lucinda starts to wonder whether it’s time to make decisions that suit her, not everyone else leading to an ending I didn’t expect, but that was total perfection. I felt so much reading this book – everything from anger to joy and so much inbetween. Lucinda is a brilliant central character, so used to being pushed around she almost disappears in the cacophony of her children. We know theres so much depth and experience in this woman and I was willing her on to finally make a choice for herself. Beautifully written, this is an emotional account of one woman’s life caught up in the Windrush scandal and it kept me spellbound to the end. 

Out Now From Penguin

Meet the Author

Eden McKenzie-Goddard is a UK-based writer and podcaster, with Barbadian-Jamaican roots. His work sheds light on the lives of the forgotten and bringing their stories to the forefront.

In 2018, Eden co-founded the top 30 music and culture podcast Don’t Alert The Stans – commended by Apple Podcasts, Complex, Beats By Dre and more.

With almost a decade working in publishing and a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from University of Westminster, McKenzie-Goddard is a student of literary minds Silvia Plath, Hanya Yanagihara and James Baldwin.

Posted in Wordpress Prompts

Favourite Childhood Books

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

This was a serendipitous prompt because I have been putting a post together for my Ten on Tuesday series about this subject. I’ve gone with books from primary school age first and this gives you a preview of what I’ll be writing about for the next few days. Many of my favourites were series and I think that’s because they came from a library. On Saturdays my dad played football and I would be dropped off in Scunthorpe with mum to shop and visit the library, a strange modern building with a glass pyramid lobby, not a great choice for a square overrun with pigeons. Mum always left me to make my own choices while she went upstairs to choose hers – on one occasion it was a Barbara Woodhouse training manual for dogs that our spaniel proceeded to rip into pieces, very pleased with himself. I’d have loved to hear that conversation with the librarian. I would choose my books, get them stamped (oh how I wanted a stamp) and then sit on a bean bag and start to read. We would travel across town to my grandma’s house on the bus and once I’d talked everyone to death I went through to the telly room and sat with grandad, who would be boiling himself next to the gas fire and watching either football or old black and white films. I would lie on the couch and read my books quietly until he wanted to check the pools. We used to watch the football results come in, my grandad swearing under his breath and me copying all the unusual club names like Leyton Orient or Heart of Midlothian. I used to take out five books every other Saturday and I would often finish a series, then start all over again with book one.

I think my favourite has to be Tove Jansson’s Moomin series and it is still something of an obsession. I collect Moomin crockery, particularly mugs and cake plates, but I also have Moomin jewellery, clothing and art around the house. I loved Moomin house and its magical Finnish surroundings. Moomintroll would always bring waifs and strays home, his parents always having enough to go round whether it was food, company or shelter that was needed. They also had buckets full of compassion and understanding for people. Little My was terribly bossy and bitey but there was room for her and her mother Mymble. Then there’s the Hemulen, a very learned gentleman who has a love of botany and can often be found shuffling around the gardens and beyond with his magnifying glass and notebook. For some reason he was always wearing a dress but nobody commented. The Snork Maiden is also a Moomin, but isn’t family. She comes and goes, mainly to see Moomintroll who she’s in love with, but she’s always worrying that she is too plump to be loved in return. Finally there’s Snufkin, Moonintroll’s best friend, who is a bit of a loner and loves to wander off and travel in the summer months. He shares a love of fishing with Moomintroll and although he doesn’t always understand Snufkin’s need to be alone he does respect it. All of these unusual people live under one roof and there’s always room. Moominmama and papa are wonderfully kind and never judgemental about their guests, they keep everyone fed and include them in their stories about various adventures. People talk about the personality types seen in Winnie the Pooh but the Moomins are it for me, I can easily fit anyone I know into one of these characters – my brother is a most definite Snufkin. They remain relevant today, particularly the Snork Maiden’s self-image and the Hemulen’s cross dressing. I only realised when I was older that I was lucky enough to have parents very like Moomintroll’s. I had a friend with a Mohican and very baggy Joe Blogg’s jeans who would stroll to my house with flowers he’d stolen from someone’s yard, or the graveyard, and announce to my mum that he’d come for tea and she always fed him. My brother and I constantly brought strays home, animals and people, and my parents were always there with food, a listening ear or some advice. I was living with Moominmamma and Pappa all along.

Reading the books over and over, certainly informed my own ways of dealing with people and might have a lot to do with my choice of career. In mental health, reserving judgment and accepting people as they are is vital in therapy. Now when I look at the books or buy something for my collection I get that feeling of nostalgia for my childhood and my family, whose way of being in the world meant we did live in Moomin House, it was just a bungalow in Lincolnshire rather than a blue tower next to a lake.

Look out for my childhood book blog in the next fortnight, or you can sign up and have every post sent to your inbox.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“When Mark died I thought I’d start seeing him around more..”

From that fascinating opener this book becomes so many things: a meditation on grief; a witness to the AIDS crisis in 1984 New York City; a community’s anger at the gentrification of the East Village; a ghost hunt led by a company called Manhattan Remediation. Renata is a young dyke-about-town who has the ability to see ghosts, which has been happening more and more frequently as her friends have started dying of what has recently been named AIDS. So, when her best friend Mark dies, she assumes she’ll see him again. There’s no way Mark wouldn’t give her a chance to say goodbye, would he? But to her disappointment – and increasingly, her concern – Mark doesn’t appear. Renata has other problems, too. A mysterious, police-like force has begun ridding their East Village neighbourhood of anything abnormal or inexplicable. At first, she’s sure they’re scam artists, but it becomes clear they’re actually trapping ghosts. With her band of lovably eccentric pals and lovers, Renata is determined to fight back against the erasure of her friends’ memories and the sanitizing of her beloved New York.

Renata is our narrator throughout and I felt a kindred spirit in seconds. Her expectation of seeing her friend Mark seems odd at first reading, but when I realised he had died without her and she hadn’t known for a few days I was so sad for her. Mark is clearly the most important person in her life, they shared a living space when either one of them wasn’t sleeping at a lover’s place and it seems unthinkable that she wouldn’t have known. That she wouldn’t have felt it. That the sky didn’t cave in. When people say life goes on this is exactly what they mean – everything carries on as normal while you feel like a shrieking banshee. However, for Renata there’s an added element to this disbelief. She can see dead people. In fact she’s being plagued by the ghost of their friend Francois, who she definitely doesn’t want in her flat. So why hasn’t Mark appeared? It’s hard to accept that the powerful and deep emotions you share with someone have suddenly become one sided. I remember thinking when my husband died, we were so close, how can that line of communication be cut? Years later, a chance encounter with a medium left me questioning again, she definitely had Jerzy’s turn of phrase, his humour and tendency to flirt with the furniture, but why was he talking to her and not me? Renata and Mark had a complicated relationship, they each had lovers, but they did have times when they slept together. There was no possessiveness in life, but in death I could understand Renata’s desire to have him to herself.

I was reminded of Jill in the TV series It’s A Sin and the deep connections the residents of the pink palace had with each other. When her best friend Ritchie starts to deteriorate badly, his family take him back home and cut him off from the people who have lived with him. It’s devastating when Jill travels to his childhood home, only to be told by his mother that Ritchie is already dead. The author picks up on this in the novel, the families unable to live with their child’s sexuality rushing in near the end to claim them. This could be out of love, but is also a way of cutting them off from their community, not wanting the stigma of AIDS to touch their family. Some families quickly and quietly arranged funerals for their children without the people who loved them for who they truly were, often citing the cause of death as cancer so the neighbours didn’t know. I was a teenager at the start of the AIDS epidemic here in the UK and I remember feeling genuine fear. The government leaflet had a gravestone on the front with ‘don’t die of ignorance’ carved on it. I even remember a bizarre telethon type event called First AIDS, presented by comedians and DJs telling us which sexual acts were most risky, how to prevent contracting the virus and how to put a condom on. I was thirteen and I honestly believe that it informed by sexual behaviour from the offset – I was known by my friends in later years for two methods of contraception at all times and I’m sure that was down to how frightening it felt back then. There was enormous stigma and prejudice, but because I lived in a quiet village in a rural county it felt somewhat removed from me. Even though I had an Uncle who was obviously gay in hindsight, we never really talked about it. Reading this and knowing that, a few years earlier than First AIDS, death was a daily reality in the gay community of the East Village really made me realise how far behind and out of touch we were. 

The author skilfully switches tones from crushing reality, to horror and even humour at times which I really enjoyed. She doesn’t spare the realities of a death from full blown AIDS, in particular she tells us the story of Francois who is haunting her apartment. He is an angry ghost, throwing and pushing things, always making a noise and creating a horrible atmosphere, even before he appears. When he does he is known to vomit, pee on the rug and often lets out a terrible scream. Francois was a teacher, but when he started losing weight and sores were appearing on his face he was asked to leave because ‘his face was scaring the children.’ She details the secondary illnesses that would kill someone with the HIV, the lymphoma or other types of cancer or infection like pneumonia. Then there’s the encephalopathy and dementia. It’s no surprise, when we hear François’s story, that his ghost is angry. She talks about the guilt she feels for wanting him to die quicker, to stop his suffering. Renata’s mother, who never let on that she had the same gift as her daughter, said that spreading salt in the corners of problematic rooms helped soak up the negative energy, so she’s been trying baths with mineral salts but it hasn’t helped. There is some comedy in Francois as well as fear and it’s Renata’s irritation with him that made me smile. She knows she can’t live with him, but what to do? Another theme within the book is the gentrification of the neighbourhood, with talk of landlords trying to remove tenants in rent controlled apartments so they can renovate and earn more from a new one. A company called Manhattan Remediation are mentioned, claiming to be able to remove ghosts or entities from apartments. It’s discussed as a possible link to gentrification, a way to ‘clean up’ the neighbourhood. This is a proud community that wants to keep its history and its ghosts. When Francois finally pushes Renata to the edge she calls them and like the fourth emergency service Dr Silverman arrives with a faraday cage. Could this be the answer? 

I was really interested in the community Renata lives in and her job at the vintage shop. She also has other friends who help her sit Shiva for Mark – a Jewish week of mourning where the bereaved stop their daily activities and focus on grieving. Renata’s friends cover the mirrors and prepare food and they talk about their memories. This is a stark contrast to her visit with Mark’s lover Patrick where there is tension and anger on both sides and I was glad she had a loving community around her. The author has captured the resistance and pride of the gay community when they’re coping with stigma and suspicion. The warmth and empathy they show each other is moving. This is such a powerful subject and really succeeds as a piece of queer history in New York City, especially since most US deaths from AIDS occurred in NYC and San Francisco. It really embodies the fear and paranoia of that time perfectly, but also depicts a community of people for whom sex may be fluid but love is plentiful and loyalty is strong. For individuals already stigmatised by their sexuality and estranged from families, this community is their found family and those ties are unbreakable. As Renata observes, if the strength of her grief alone could compel Mark to appear then he would. The addition of Renata’s psychic abilities is a genre-bending idea that mostly works really well and accentuates how lost and confused she feels. I felt her need to keep living too, even though the pull of the dead is so strong. The way she relates her personal grief to the reader, in a time of unprecedented loss, is the strongest part of the book. 

Out now from RiverRun

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Bell Witches by Lindsey Kelk 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

After sixteen-year-old Emily’s father tragically dies, she is forced to live with the only family she has left, an aunt and grandmother in the heart of Savannah, Georgia in a house as beautiful as it is mysterious.

But all is not what it seems with the Bell family; they’re hiding a magical secret.

When Emily meets the alluring Wyn, she forms a connection that feels like it was always meant to be. As the spark between them grows more powerful, her life takes an exhilarating and terrifying turn; but every step closer to him, takes her a step further away from her family.

Emily will find out that blood is always thicker than water…

THERE’S NO BOND GREATER THAN MAGIC

YA fiction isn’t usually on my radar, but I love both Alice Hoffman’s and Sarah Addison Allen’s mix of small town America and witches so I gave it a try. I was sold on the cover comment that this was ‘Buffy meets the Gilmore Girls’. It certainly isn’t short on atmosphere, with a charming setting in Savannah and Bell House in particular. For Emily who is used to the Welsh climate, it’s hard to acclimatise to the soupy heat that leaves everyone dripping in minutes – their laundry basket must be full every day. The Spanish moss that hangs from the trees like a natural brand of tinsel is actually parasitic, showing us that not everything is as beautiful as it first appears. Bell House is breathtaking and Emily’s first glimpse is overwhelming, calling it ‘Sleeping Beauty’s castle through an Instagram filter’. Everything has that southern charm, including her aunt Ashley’s breakfasts that have so much variety it feels like going out to brunch every morning. What Emily hasn’t yet realised is that she has the power to change the weather just by changing mood and Bell House is equally responsive to the people who live there, but its sentience isn’t just benign. Emily’s grandmother Catherine is in tune with the house and drips with Southern charm, her sayings are pure Deep South hokum; “you look like you were rode hard and put away wet” made me giggle out loud. As she starts to educate Emily in her heritage as a witch I wondered whether her sweetness was just as synthetic as saccharin. 

I felt like the plot was paced awkwardly, feeling both too slow and too fast at once. This was a slow burn at first, setting up both the atmosphere and back story of the Bell family. While this is understandable as the first book in a series, it did feel like the plot took a back seat to description. Conversely, the central romance seemed to proceed at the speed of light with an intensity that felt unnecessary at this early stage. It felt as if their connection was simply announced rather than slowly building up through their emotions. I wanted more from her new friends Lydia and Jackson, both of whom promise fun and mischief and are incredibly loyal to Emily despite only knowing her a few weeks. I liked Lydia’s role as the naughty twin and I hope their friendship develops in the next book. Jackson is taken with Emily and I was expecting some rivalry between him and Emily’s love interest Wyn. I also loved her aunt Ashley who cares for Bell House and its inhabitants so beautifully, but has a dry wit and plenty of sarcasm. She doesn’t take to Emily right away and she’s a great antidote to Catherine’s syrupy sweetness. She never leaves the house and doesn’t pretend to be happy about her role, there’s far more going on here than meets the eye. 

Catherine is the strongest character, stunningly beautiful and clearly very powerful. She takes her role as Emily’s mentor and caretaker very seriously, but there’s very little emotional connection. Catherine isn’t a cuddly grandma at all and imposes quite a few rules on Emily including a ban on dating until her ‘becoming’ when she comes into her full power as a Bell witch. It is Catherine who relates the story of the family of witches who have lived in this house and her history with Emily’s father Paul, who didn’t want Emily to grow up knowing about her potential powers. I loved that the author addressed issues from within that history that resonate today, especially the witch’s role as wise woman to others in her area.

“She helped women who wanted to control the size of their families […] there have always been women who help others in that regard.” 

This is important to Emily who soon discovers she’s a natural apothecary, somehow able to identify most of the plants in Bell House’s garden along with their specific uses. I liked the idea that witches tend to have a speciality, with Catherine being an elemental witch. She suspects Emily of having many different powers, shown clearly when they encounter an unexpected attacker in the cemetery one night. This is a terrifying incident for Emily, even though she doesn’t know the full implications of her actions yet. Catherine tells her that their powers don’t signify them as good or bad, but the opposing forces they work with must be treated with respect. It felt like the book really picked up the pace towards the final third, with Emily’s becoming on the horizon and Lydia planning her a birthday party. This contrast shows us how extreme Catherine’s regime is and reminds us that Emily is a teenager who should be getting to know other young people and looking forward to dancing the night away on her birthday. Instead she’s heading out to a cemetery in the dark, for a potentially dangerous initiation into the Bell tradition under a guidance of a grandmother who doesn’t always seem to have her granddaughter’s best interests at heart. This is where Ashley comes into her own and I hoped to see Emily’s relationship with her aunt develop in future books. The becoming is going to be a reckoning for Emily, Catherine and Wyn in an action packed finale that is gripping and unexpected. There were elements of this novel that I really enjoyed and others I felt were underdeveloped or rushed. I wanted more depth to Wyn and Emily, with perhaps a few twists to their relationship considering their age and Jackson’s interest in Emily. The atmosphere and setting really stood out most, the action sequences were dramatic and fast paced and there were characters with a lot of potential. I am very interested to see how werewolves are going to integrate with the story and how Bell House will respond to Emily after her becoming. I really hope we also see more of that conflict between normal teenager and all powerful witch, as well as more about Savannah and its history. The sequel is out now so look out for my review coming in the next few weeks. 

Sequel The Witch and the Wolf is out now from Magpie Publishing

Meet the Author

Lindsey is a Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author, podcaster and vociferous defender of The Cheesecake Factory. Her books include the I Heart series, Christmas Fling, The Christmas Wish, Love Story and YA fantasy series, The Bell Witches.

When she isn’t writing, Lindsey moonlights as a co-host on Tights and Fights, a pro-wrestling podcast on the Maximum Fun network. Yes, really, pro-wrestling. And when she isn’t writing, podcasting or ruining her life with social media, Lindsey is most likely to be found reading, watching literally anything on television, texting the group chat or planning a karaoke night (please note she cannot sing).

Born and raised in South Yorkshire, Lindsey lived in London and New York before settling in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and their two cats.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Dark Is The Morning by Rupert Thomson 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Sometimes love isn’t where you belong

In a mountain village in the Abruzzo region of Italy, Gino, a troubled young man, realises that his childhood sweetheart Franca can give his life the happiness and stability he needs. They seem made for each other, and move to a remote house in the countryside – but there is something in Franca’s past that haunts Gino.

Descending into pathological jealousy and resentment towards a married man who had been Franca’s lover, Gino is unable to stop himself imagining the worst, and embarks on a violent path that has catastrophic consequences.

There couldn’t be a better book for a counsellor to read than this one, following the life of Gino who lives in a small Italian town on the Adriatic Sea. The setting isn’t a bucolic, sun drenched and charming little town, despite Gino’s upbringing on his father’s smallholding where he mainly grows tomatoes. This is a grittier Italy, perfectly suited to the story and Gino himself. Although there is a sense that there’s a different existence within reach, perhaps the life his father has living off the land or whatever brings his father’s friend Harry back every few months. Whatever contentment is, Gino doesn’t know how to find it or accept it once he has it. Gino was born here and makes the comment that he’ll die here if he isn’t careful. He doesn’t want to live the life his parents have, he has bigger and better things to do. However, it could also be the foreshadowing of what’s to come when he meets Franca again. Franca was at school with Gino and in some senses he feels they’re both outsiders: ‘She was a strange little stringy thing, with a thin face and brown hair’. Franca was nicknamed The Rat by other girls, but then Gino was called Dopey after the dwarf in Snow White. She’s very bold, walking up to Gino and telling him that she’s going to marry him one day something both of them were teased about for years. Now, when his father mentions her, he seems irritated but they do have something in common, an inability to live up to their heroic parents. Gino confided in her when they were thirteen, saying all he seems to do is disappoint his father. Franca seems to get this, after all Gino’s father is known for something heroic he did in WW2 and her father is the local ambulance man. Maybe, she suggests, they could be something different to each other? She’s a realist, saying her father could have wanted a beautiful daughter and she’s aware she isn’t. How can they compare to heroes? They are only human. Gino gets into trouble in his teens and spent time in a psychiatric unit and he admits he’d forgotten his old friend, but the conversation with his father lights up his memory and he questions his choices. With a new view on life he searches Franca out and asks to take her to dinner and they are married in a whirlwind and given the chance to make a home in her aunt’s house in the countryside. Is it possible that Gino has learned from his mistakes and now sees what is important in life? 

If I had a trainee who wanted to understand the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy concept of negative automatic thoughts I’d get them to read this book. Everything Gino experiences is filtered through a faulty lens. Whether this is innate or a result of constantly feeling like a disappointment is hard to tell. At the moment he has it all, but in his mind it’s already unravelling. The house needs a lot of work, but could be a secluded haven for a family. Gino hears that something strange happened to Franca’s aunt here during the war and starts to wonder about it, could an event like that leave something in the house like a mood or a feeling? Is the house unlucky in some way? To be transparent about her past Franca tells him about an affair she had with one of her father’s friends. Although outwardly he seems to accept this confession, inwardly it becomes a nagging concern he can’t shake off. He asks others about man who has a concrete business, telling them he has a friend who’s putting in a pool. He tells himself he just wants to look at him, but can he resist speaking to him or perhaps even warning him off? At the end of her working day Franca goes to a cafe in town to wait for Gino to pick her up after work. He notices that she’s chatting to a man, laughing and passing the time of day and he knows he’s been trying to pick her up. His strangest obsession comes when his son Elio is born, a beautiful baby with amazing violet eyes. Everyone who sees him comments on what a beautiful boy he is and he genuinely seems hypnotic for some people, almost holy. All Gino can see is a boy who looks nothing like him. Neither he nor Franca are beauties so how can Elio be his and inspire such reverence in complete strangers? Being in his mind is exhausting and worrying, the author leaves us unsure what he might do next. Pressure mounts with every page and Harry is the only person who seems to get through to Gino, telling him that perhaps the boy embodies the beauty inside them both. 

Everything about Gino screams of a paranoid personality disorder, his mistrust of others and ability to twist innocent encounters into personal slights and grudges are classic symptoms. He has stopped listening to others and his behaviours become more extreme, including hallucinations that his baby son is talking to him. Franca is disturbed to come home and find Elio screaming in the house alone, while Gino is zoned out in the garden. As readers we’re inside his mind and see his motivations, the wrong patterns of thinking and the way he broods and cultivates grudges that are simply not there. Instead of facing these painful thoughts he directs his anger and obsession outward. If Elio is nothing like him, then someone else must be the father. I genuinely believe that Pierozzi would have carried on his life rarely thinking of Franca and her new husband, but Gino’s places himself in harm’s way. Pierozzi is a dangerous man. He’s described as someone things happened to and that resonated with my idea of Gino. Is this something people would eventually say about him? The way the author builds this difficult inner world is so clever and I was anxious, mainly for Franca and Elio. They are living in the middle of nowhere, with a husband and father who is no longer rational. I was mentally screaming at her to make sure she had somewhere safe to go. 

Franca is very sure of her own emotions and choices. When Gino asks her if she’d still marry him she tells him calmly that her feelings have never changed. However she does have “something of the fox about her. That sudden, absolute stillness, that pricking of the ears, that readiness to flee.” Will Franca be just as resolute if she does sense danger? I felt so sad for her, because Gino’s obsession with her past harms her, even though it has nothing to do with him. Why can’t he see that she has only ever loved him? Despite him leaving and never making her any promises when they’re younger, her love never dies. That shows loyalty, but it’s never appreciated or rewarded. Even the beautiful son they have isn’t enough and I wondered if it was partly about his fears of her infidelity but mainly about his relationship with his own father. They were so different in character and distant emotionally, did he ever wonder about his own paternity? The author bookends this story with Harry as the narrator and honestly I had an emotional reaction to being back in Harry’s steady hands at the end. Being in his world felt safer and the way he frames Gino’s story gives it some closure and structure too. I found myself wondering how I’d work with a client like Gino and whether he could ever be satisfied with his life. This book has emotional depth and complexity, tension and action alongside some incredibly surreal moments too. I would definitely read this author again. 

Out now from Head of Zeus

Meet the Author

Rupert Thomson is the author of fifteen critically acclaimed novels, including ‘The Insult’, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and chosen by David Bowie as one of the 100 Must-Read Books of All Time, ‘The Book of Revelation’, which was made into a feature film by the Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos, and ‘Death of a Murderer’, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize.

His latest novel, ‘Dark is the Morning’, was published on May 7th 2026. Praised in advance by the likes of Chloe Aridjis, Claire-Louise Bennet, Sarah Waters, Julie Myerson, and Philip Pullman, LoveReading subsequently made it one of their Star Books of the Year, saying “Thomson’s writing casts an almost other-worldly spell…Teeming with tension, ‘Dark is the Morning’ represents literary fiction at its most page-turningly thrilling and poignant.” According to the Financial Times, which admired Thomson’s “stunned, post-traumatic prose”, it’s “the ideal holiday read: frictionless at the level of the sentence; stealthy, romantic, and utterly unpredictable in every other way.”

Rupert Thomson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Granta, the Guardian, the Independent, and the London Review of Books. He has lived in many cities around the world, including Athens, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney, Rome, and most recently Barcelona. He currently lives in London.