Finn is taking her girlfriend Magdu climbing for the first time. Magdu is nervous about heights so Finn is taking extra special care to explain everything about the abseil they’re attempting. As Finn lowers herself over the edge to control the descent from beneath, she is sure she has Magdu ready and composed on the blue rope, with friend Daphne on the red rope. She’s waiting to feel the weight of someone lowering them selves over the edge, but is surprised when it seems to be the wrong side. Magdu was meant to come over first but this is the red rope so it must be Daphne. The next thing Finn sees is Magdu hurtling towards her and then towards the ground, with a haunting scream. As both Finn and Daphne are taken in to the police station for questioning, Finn starts to think of an earlier time in her life when someone else she loved fell to their death. The truth of that day is something she’s only ever shared with Daphne. This time it’s a potential murder investigation so she’s going to have to protect herself, but might that mean the end of her friendship with Daphne?
My goodness this was a deliciously toxic friendship to get my therapist’s mind whirring. Finn and Daphne meet at school after a very traumatic occurrence in Finn’s family life. Finn is so vulnerable and hasn’t shared with anyone what truly happened when her little sister Suzy lost her life on a family camping trip. Suzy fell from a cliff edge in the night, but is that all there is to it? Daphne, who has also suffered the loss of a sibling, so knows exactly what to do with someone in that state of mind. She can’t change anything but she can sit with Finn and share her sadness and guilt. Finn is our narrator and we see everything through her eyes and she’s also been struggling with her sexuality, until Magdu comes along. However, I could also see how the combination of Finn’s kindness and fear of being exposed, left her open to exploitation. I didn’t fully bond with Finn as a narrator, I was unsure whether to trust her or not. She did set off my maternal streak though, because I wanted to see her safe and protected. She’s kind and cares about the environment, her family and climbing. My instinct was that she needed to be as far away from Daphne as possible. She’s manipulative, knowing exactly what and how much to tell Finn to draw her into her confidence and keep her beholden. I wasn’t even sure whether it was the truth.
I felt, very early on, that Daphne wanted Finn all to herself. When Finn first introduces her to Magdu at a club, its not long before Daphne finds a way to get Magdu alone. She lets slip a secret, making sure Finn doesn’t know exactly how much of the story she’s revealed. As Magdu leaves after the confrontation, Daphne tells Finn it’s her own fault. If she’d wanted Daphne to lie she could have just told her. I was unsure whether Daphne and Finn’s relationship is platonic or romantic, but I was sure about it’s complexity. There’s no room for a third person. Finn tells us about Daphne’s hair and how beautiful she is, there’s clearly an attraction but Daphne also likes to flirt with the male climbers in front of Finn. On the day of the accident there’s a very handsome climber hanging around at the top of the cliff with a huge hunting knife and Daphne makes a bee line for him. She’s used Finn’s grief and guilt and their shared loss of a sibling, to keep her constantly on a tight rein. I felt like Daphne was absolutely capable of harming Magdu. She potentially harms their relationship then reminds Finn that she is the only person who truly knows her, that it’s the two of them against the world. Yet Finn isn’t innocent in this toxic mix, she is complicit by not telling Magdu the same secrets that Daphne knows. Finn is a troubled soul, plagued with insomnia and often going for midnight walks. I thought she needed to choose between her friend and her lover, but I also wondered what Daphne was capable of doing if Finn chose Magdu. In amongst all the psychological machinations and flashbacks the author keeps bringing us back to the present and the more precise methods of the police investigations.
The flitting back and forth between the narrators gives rise to the tension that keeps you reading. Both are utterly unreliable and untrustworthy, especially when we think about the enormity of their secrets. The two are bonded and no one else could come between them, it’s as if Finn has been in a relationship with Daphne all along without realising. I craved some input from Daphne’s perspective because I imagined her version of events would look very different, although not necessarily true. They would also be a fascinating insight into her mind. I kept coming back to personality disorders and the way people portray their lives to the rest of the world. Daphne genuinely struck me as a person with potential narcissistic personality disorder. She has a version of the long held friendship she’s had with Finn and she’s keen on putting that version in front of others, especially Magdu. To use an inelegant phrase it’s like a dog marking their territory. The question is, how much of that version is actually true? One of the markers of NPD is the person’s manipulation of both people and events, but it isn’t a conscious action. They believe in their truth wholeheartedly, sometimes repeating a made-up narrative over and over until it actually becomes a the truth in their mind. When they first meet, Daphne and Finn discuss their shared experiences and Daphne explains how she chose to rewrite her story as an ancient myth, invoking Greek gods and particularly epic poetry. She has taken the heightened and exaggerated heroism of these stories to spin her own life narrative and has rewritten her personality to match. I wasn’t sure about the ending I would get, but there was a twist and it was a satisfying conclusion. My only criticisms of the book would be that it was slow in parts and I felt the author could have used the setting more, because apart from a mention of the Blue Mountains I didn’t feel the characters connected with it enough, especially Finn. However, this was a very character driven thriller which really enjoy and it’s deep delve into the motivations and desires of Finn and Daphne were absolutely compelling.
Meet the Author
Hayley Scrivenor is the author of DIRT TOWN, which published internationally in 2022 (published as DIRT CREEK in the U.S., where it was a USA TODAY bestseller) and quickly became a #1 Australian bestseller. The novel has been shortlisted for multiple national and international awards. In 2023, it won a Lambda Literary Award and General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards. DIRT TOWN has been translated into several languages. GIRL FALLING, described as “a remarkable exercise in complex storytelling written in Scrivenor’s idiosyncratic, metaphorically vivid prose”, is her second novel.
Hayley has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and lives on Dharawal country, on the east coast of Australia.
As Vianne scatters her mother’s ashes in New York, she knows the wind has changed and it’s time to move on. She will return to France, solo except for her ‘little stranger’ who is no bigger than a cocoa bean but very present in her thoughts. Drawn to the sea she blows into Marseille and to a tiny bistrot where owner Louis is stuck, struggling with grief for decades after losing his wife Margot. She charms herself into a waitressing job for bed and board, but with his blessing she starts to cook for his regulars using the recipe book Margot left behind. Louis has one stipulation, she mustn’t change the recipe at all. She revives the herb garden and starts to make friends, including Guy who is working towards opening a chocolate shop. This is going to be the place to have her baby, but then she must move on. She can see her child at about six years old, paddling by some riverboats tethered nearby, but she can also see the man her mother feared. The man in black. Vianne has inherited a peculiar kind of magic that urges her to fix the lives of those around her and give them what their heart truly desires. This is fine when it’s discerning their favourite chocolate, but can cause problems when it becomes meddling. Her mother warned her that she shouldn’t settle too long in one place and Vianne knows she has the strength to leave whenever she feels it’s right, but is thinking about those around her?
What a joy it is to be back in Vianne’s world. It’s like being back with an old friend and in a couple of sentences we’d picked up where we left off. This is a younger Vianne, aware of her burgeoning abilities, but inexperienced in the power she holds and it’s effects on others. Part of that ability is a natural charm and willingness to work hard. She takes time to win people over. She’s happy to take on a challenge whether it’s the recipe book, the garden or the chocolate shop. She merely softens the edges of all this with a ‘pretty’ here and there or tuning into someone’s colours. She has a natural ability to make the best of things, whether it’s adding a vase of flowers to a room or a pinch of chocolate spice here and there. It doesn’t do the work, it just deepens the flavours or enhances what’s there. There’s that little bit too much optimism, not fully reading a situation before wading in, that comes with youth and inexperience. She’s streetwise, used to watching her back. She knows how to protect herself and when to run, but lacks emotional intelligence. She’s unaware that breaking down someone’s defences can leave them vulnerable or even broken. Vianne doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body though, just youthful exuberance and emotional immaturity.
As always there are wonderfully quirky characters with lots of secrets to uncover and others who become real through memory, artefacts or reviving something they loved and giving it life. Louis has a grumpy exterior, not as grumpy as his friend Emile, but definitely a tough shell and a rigid routine. Every day he cooks for his regulars never deviating from the recipes or her kitchen equipment. Vianne has to use specific pans for certain dishes and ancient utensils that could do with an update, but she doesn’t complain. On Sundays he visits the cemetery, but instead of going to the soulless high rise mausoleum where Margot is laid to rest, he visits her favourite poet and leaves a red rose. Vianne is touched by his adherence to this routine, but it’s only when she is in touch with Margot’s spirit that she can see the full, complicated picture. As she uses the kitchen she feels Margot’s sadness and anxiety. Her need for a baby comes through strongly. Was this the unhappiness at the centre of their marriage? Emile is very difficult to get a handle on, he doesn’t respond to Vianne’s charm or her chocolates. His concern is that she will take advantage of Louis, but the more she seems to settle the more hostile he gets. I enjoyed Guy and the chocolate shop, but it’s another occasion where she doesn’t get the bigger picture. Guy is quite similar to Vianne in temperament, drive and enthusiasm. He seems utterly different in character to his friend Mahmet. Vianne notices Mahmet’s more pessimistic nature and concerns about money. She puts it down to the friend’s different backgrounds and experience, but I could see that Mahmet was a realist and his concerns might be valid. It becomes clear that Guy is a dreamer and as a child of rich parents has never faced the consequences of disaster. He also has a tendency to bail out when things get difficult.
Motherhood is the major theme of the book from Vianne’s pregnancy to the sadness of Margot and the relationship Vianne had with her own mother. There were memories of Vianne’s mother throughout and she has to battle with her mother’s voice constantly. She has internalised her mother’s voice to such a degree that it’s become one of her own inner voices. She fights against it, letting herself feel that natural urge to belong especially when Louis starts to get ready for the baby’s arrival. Part of her wants to stay, but her mother’s adage about becoming too comfortable is insistent. Is there something they were always running from? She’s angry with her mum in some ways, thinking about what she’s missed out on – a home, a wider family, school and friends her own age. It may be there was a good reason for their anonymity but her mum was all she knew making it all the more devastating when she died and Vianne was left utterly alone. Vianne’s own glimpses of motherhood are in the future, when her baby is a small child. She’s absolutely sure it’s a girl and the name Anouk comes to her. It seems that although her instinct and inner voice suggest they keep moving, she doesn’t want Anouk to have the upbringing she did. She wants Anouk to have a sense of belonging, a school and local friends, which gave me a lovely flash forward to Chocolat and Anouk running wild through the village with a pack of friends behind her. She remembers an instance when her mother insists they leave behind Vianne’s toy rabbit to teach her not to get attached to things. Is it Vianne’s memory of this incident and longing for that toy rabbit that conjures up her daughter’s later imaginary friend, the rabbi Pantoufle? I loved these little links to the future.
The details and images they conjure up are always the best part of this series for me, because they take me on a visual journey. I was fascinated to read in her Amazon bio that she has synaesthesia, because I do with certain colours and I can feel that in her writing. The author weaves her magic in the detailed recipes of Margot’s book, the incredible chocolates that she and Guy create and the decorative details of their display window with it’s origami animals and chocolate babies. The most beautiful part is how Vianne brings people together. Yes, it’s partly magic but it’s also her kindness and lack of judgement. The noodle shop next door to the chocolate shop leaves rubbish and oil drums in the back alley which are an eyesore. When they’re reported the owner blames Mahmet, possibly due to his seemingly unfriendly demeanour. Vianne spends weeks taking them chocolates and chatting, slowly gaining their trust until they’re helping out for opening day. She even manages to get Louis and the fierce Emile to visit the shop, even though it’s in a part of the city Emile swears neither of them will visit. It’s when we see what Vianne can accomplish on days like this that we see her at her best – thinking forward to her Easter display window in her own shop or the meals cooked for friends under starlit skies. Vianne is a glowing lantern or a warm fire, she draws people to her light and to bask in her warmth. This is also why readers who love the Chocolat series return again and again. We simply want to be with Vianne and that’s definitely a form of literary magic.
Out Now From ORION
Meet the Author
Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of over twenty novels, plus novellas, cookbooks, scripts, short stories, libretti, lyrics, articles, and a self-help book for writers, TEN THINGS ABOUT WRITING. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Her hobbies are listed in Who’s Who as ‘mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system’. She is active on social media, where she writes stories and gives writing tips as @joannechocolat; she posts writing seminars on YouTube; she performs in a live music and storytelling show with the #Storytime Band; and she works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.
She also has a form of synaesthesia which enables her to smell colours. Red, she says, smells of chocolate.
Robin is exactly half way through his life. Like Mark Twain before him, Robin came into the world with Halley’s Comet in 1986 and fully expects to go out again when it returns in 2061. Recently he’s had a huge life change. He’s moved back to his home town of Eastgate to care for his sick father, who due to a disability has had one accident too many. Robin had a well-regimented life in London with girlfriend Gemma. He also had a boring well-paid job as an accountant. Now everything has been thrown up in the air and he’s living in a tiny bedroom surrounded by boxes he hasn’t unpacked. He’s trying to forge a relationship with a father who can’t communicate and who he never connected with as a child. There are childhood ghosts to face and a new connection with Astrid, fellow outsider and professor at a nearby university. She’s brutally straightforward and Robin has never met anyone like her. She’s also hiding something, but he’s hiding even more from her. Can Robin make friends, help his father and accept this is the next chapter of his life?
This was a great book that’s simply joyful to read, even while addressing some really difficult themes. Robin is a great character to spend time with. I found myself feeling quite protective of him, despite his rather pernickety ways. I could honestly feel his anxiety and he copes by planning for eventualities that might never happen. He ekes out money, setting a daily amount for a minimal food plan and then bulk shopping at Costco. He’s worked out how long his savings will last, trying to keep Dad’s care to a minimum so he can afford it for longer. He seems at odds with everyone; not communicating with his father, bickering with Jackie who is his father’s man carer, and not even trying to find old friends. I’ve been a carer and I felt how overwhelmed he is by everything when he climbs up on the roof for some peace. He has to connect in order to get this new chapter of life started. However, to do that he has to accept that this is his life for now. The daytime telly shows, the sorting of meds and lifting his dad off the loo is life. He doesn’t seem to realise that while he fights it, he remains standing still. If he accepts Astrid’s friendship, unpacks the boxes and breathes, life will get better.
My two favourite characters are the forthright Astrid and Jackie. Astrid is a strong character and has a lot to say, but enough quirks to humour Robin and push him just a little into enjoying life. She embraces and accepts where he is in life, happily trawling Costco for savings. His relationship with her little boy is lovely too. No one can go through life as an island though and Eastgate is a small place. It’s almost inevitable that these new relationships are uncomfortably entangled with others he’s been trying to avoid. Jackie is wise and more of an asset than Robin realises as he spends weeks trying everything to avoid her – even climbing onto the roof. She’s brilliantly written because I’ve met carers like this and they’re worth their weight in gold. Nothing phases her and she is soon onto Robin’s ways. She reminded me of an incredible carer called Barbara who worked in a pair looking after my late husband. She was wider than she was tall and smoked like a chimney between calls. She was also matter of fact, never allowing him to be embarrassed about any aspect of his care. Barbara had seen it all and her stories had him in fits of laughter. I knew he was in safe hands with her, an incredible weight off my mind when I had to go in to University. Barbara passed out one day at work and died only a few days later, from a brain tumour she didn’t know she had. She was caring for people at the end of their lives, not knowing she was close to her own.
The wonderful relationship between Robin and old friend Danny felt so genuine and the way they talked to each other felt exactly like people who’ve known each other from childhood. There’s a shorthand and we start to realise some of Robin’s quirks have been there a while. You get the sense that if they were going on a bike ride Robin would spend so long getting prepped with wet weather gear and a puncture repair kit that they’d run out of time. Danny on the other hand would set off as is and get soaking wet, then tell everyone the story for years. Danny is full of life and has a great business idea to run past Robin, but can he be tempted to take the risk? Robin is eking out an existence that goes way off into the distant future, but our futures change all the time and one day he’ll start living yet another chapter. Living is right now! It’s not when we have money, or have lost weight, or when we have better health. It’s now, when we’re skint, fat and feeling ill. Whatever life looks like right now, we absolutely must live. Many people don’t get the time to waste. Of course, when we find out why Robin is so adamant about his comet theory – while being forced to evaluate his choices by a strident Astrid – it all becomes clear. A heart-breaking tale emerges, just as Robin is faced with yet another loss. He’s forced to admit why he jumped off a cliff into the water when he was a child. He thinks he can’t die, because once he survived something and can’t make sense of it. In fact immortality is the only explanation that does make sense to him. He’s doing what humans do, we subscribe meaning to events that have none. It’s just messy, terrifying, random and heart-breaking life. Katie infuses this difficult truth with beauty, humour and hope because life is beautiful and joyous too, if you let it be.
Out 22nd May from Orenda Books
Meet the Author
Katie Allen was a journalist and columnist at Guardian and Observer, starting her career as a Reuters correspondent in Berlin and London. Her warmly funny, immensely moving literary debut novel, Everything Happens for a Reason, was based on her own devastating experience of stillbirth and was a number-one digital bestseller, with wide critical acclaim. Katie grew up in Warwickshire and now lives in South London with her family.
Rebecca and husband George run Evergreen House as a home for young girls and their illegitimate children, often called a house for ‘fallen women’. This has been a positive change. Previously, Rebecca’s sister Maddie was the woman of the house as the wife of Dr Everley. Maddie is recovering well after being on trial for the murder of her baby and the revelation that the Everley family had a tradition of hideous experimentation on the bodies of babies to create strange chimeras. Rebecca knows their tenure here is precarious. The Everley family still own the house, but with Dr Everley dead and his sister Grace in a prison asylum no one currently needs it. The small household are very close so all are devastated when the cook and centre of their household, Rose, is murdered. Rebecca is shocked by the death of her friend in what seems to be a random act. Rose’s death isn’t the end of the mysterious events at Evergreen. Rebecca fears the past is coming back to haunt them, the murderous and twisted legacy of the Everley family is hard to ignore. What was a sanctuary is becoming dangerous as the evil presence continues it’s work. With the charity board also tightening their grip on the house, Rebecca must draw out the murderer and discover their purpose.
This was a great companion novel to The Small Museum which told the story of Maddie’s marriage to Dr Everley. Rebecca was once one of Grace Everley’s fallen girls, but this was just a way of acquiring babies for her brother. It was great to see Maddie again especially so happy with her partner Tizzy. They are both regular visitors to Evergreen. There’s such a positive atmosphere and the residents are able to live alongside their babies, unlike the terrible Magdalen Laundries where babies were taken for adoption and their mothers were forced into heavy labour to repent their sin, repay their debt and make a profit for the church. The truth is that most of these girls have been manipulated, coerced or abused. Rebecca works on the premise that they shouldn’t be punished twice. There’s a lovely parallel with Maddie’s paintings of mythical women that she’s submitting to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Helen of Troy is seen as the cause of the Trojan War, but she had no agency in the story. She’s desired by a man who abducts her by force. Medusa is raped in the temple of Athena, but the goddess chooses to punish her for desecrating the temple, giving her snakes for hair and a gaze that turns men to stone. Neither woman asked for what happened to them. Maddie has painted them on huge powerful canvasses, a monument to women mistreated by men.
The house is becoming a hive of activity in the lead up to Easter. The children are excited, painting eggs and helping their mums to weave colourful baskets. So it is a shock to them when Rose is gone. She was always helping the children to bake and had a listening ear for anyone in the household who needed it. It’s as if the heart has been taken from their home. Downstairs at Evergreen has always been a different matter. Psychologist, Dr Threlfall practises in the basement at the behest of Grace Everley. He ensured Maddie wasn’t wrongly convicted of the murder of her baby and Rebecca is grateful, but is slightly suspicious of what he’s researching. He has an interest in eugenics, measuring the girl’s heads, the placement of their features and notes any patterns. He’s trying to create a taxonomy of fallen women as if their sin might be predicted by physical characteristics. Rebecca worries he’s been inspired by old Dr Everley’s research into pain – especially when she hears one of the girl’s scream from his room. Then there’s the room next door where one of the servants is practising her taxidermy, in an unhygienic way! It’s as if the interests and hobbies of the Everley’s are ingrained in the fabric of the house.
In between Rebecca’s narrative, we have Grace Everley’s. She’s incarcerated and seems to be teetering on the brink of insanity. Used to manipulating people with her beauty, her finery is a thing of the past and her beautiful hair has been completely shaved off. She’s still incensed that Dr Threlfall testified for Maddie, sending her brother to the gallows. What she cares about most and the focus for her vengeful thoughts, is that her father’s work isn’t being continued. She takes us back to her teenage years and participating in her father’s pain research – now she is utterly stoic and she can completely separate mind from body, blocking out her pain receptors. I did feel a tiny bit of sympathy for her because she didn’t stand a chance growing up in that environment. Having been used by her father she could have been a submissive mouse, but instead she became powerful and used her feminine charms to control the men around her. Could she still have that influence?
The men in the novel are mainly concerned with controlling their environment and all the women in it. Dr Threlfall is the last link between the Everley family and Evergreen House. He may be an effective doctor but his interest in eugenics is concerning. It always leads to controlling people’s behaviour and persecuting those who don’t fit the rigid ideal. It lead to some of the biggest atrocities of the 20th Century. Looking to categorise a type of woman who ends up in trouble, lets men off the hook for what happens to them. Mr Lavell is equally discriminatory. He thinks that women who have children out of wedlock must be punished for their actions and only the Bible and physical work will remind them of the terrible choices they’ve made. He finds Rebecca’s methods too lenient and would like the children sent to the orphanage. Then he’d bring laundry in for the women, to keep them penitent and make a profit for the charity board. Only George is absolutely steadfast to his wife. When a woman turns up at the door asking for kitchen work, Rebecca goes her a chance even though her references will need chasing after the fact. Things start to deteriorate quickly once Angela is in charge in the kitchen and it’s definitely not the heart of the home any more. She could have a bedroom but chooses to bed down in the cupboard where Dr Everley kept his specimens. She doesn’t try to make connections and won’t have children baking in the kitchen. Rebecca is concerned and then incensed when she suspects her of selling one of the women’s stories to a Penny Dreadful. When one of the youngest children falls ill, Rebecca knows for sure that something evil lurks in the house. She feels assailed from all sides, evil from within and outside forces trying to force their own agenda. She has to solve the mystery before the charity board get wind of their problems and use it to close them down.
This was a tense and atmospheric read. I could feel the warmth and happiness slowly being sucked from Evergreen House. It did feel evil, like a creeping black mould slowly covering everything. This really showed the inequality in society and how the fates of these women are decided by men; especially ironic when men are complicit, if not to blame for their supposed fall. One man seeks a genetic reason for their loose morals. Another feels they haven’t atoned for their sin. While a third would take away their children and punish them with hard labour. Not a single one questions their own behaviour or even doubts their right to pass judgement. Yet there are admirable women calmly showing compassion, understanding and professionalism, while stuck in this patriarchal system. Grace Everley gives me the shivers, but she is a victim too. I was held in suspense over who was the murderer and whether Rebecca’s home could remain the loving and caring space women need. There were heart-stopping moments, especially towards the end. The scene in the garden had me holding my breath. This is the perfect gothic mystery, especially for fans of historical fiction who like a touch of feminism on the side. This is a must-buy, for the engrossing story and for the gorgeous cover too.
Out Now from Allison and Busby
Meet the Author
Jody Cooksley is an author represented by literary agent Charlotte Seymour at Johnson & Alcock.
In 2023 she won the Caledonia Novel Award with The Small Museum, a chilling Victorian thriller that was published in hardback, ebook and audio with Allison&Busby in May 2024. Paperback publication was February 2025 and the sequel, The Surgeon’s House will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in May 2025.
Previous novels include award-nominated The Glass House, a fictional account of Victorian pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron (Cinnamon Press, 2020), and How to Keep Well in Wartime (Cinnamon Press, 2022)
She is currently writing more Victorian gothic novels. She has previously published essays, short stories and flash fiction.
Jody works in communications and lives in Surrey with her husband, two sons, two forest cats and a dangerous mountain of books.
Three classic tales of childhood on an island paradise – My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell – make up The Corfu Trilogy.
Just before the Second World War the Durrell family decamped to the glorious, sun-soaked island of Corfu where the youngest of the four children, ten-year-old Gerald, discovered his passion for animals: toads and tortoises, bats and butterflies, scorpions and octopuses. Through glorious silver-green olive groves and across brilliant-white beaches Gerry pursued his obsession . . . causing hilarity and mayhem in his ever-tolerant family. This book is joyous and has the reputation of being the only book my brother loved. The Durrells are gloriously eccentric and this trilogy transports you to Corfu so well it’s like taking a holiday.
It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician.
When Pelagia, the local doctor’s daughter, finds her letters to her fiancé go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender? Forget the awful film, in which barely anyone was Greek, and pick this up if you haven’t already. Not only is it a great chronicle of WW2 in Greece, but it is a touchingly beautiful love story you’ll want to read again.
‘That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .’
I read a recent review where Three Summers was touted as a Greek I Capture The Castle and that draws me in straight away. This is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, beautiful but distant Infanta, and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become. A beautiful story of growing up, sisterhood and first love.
Retold Myths
Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making . . . So I’ll spin my own thread.
Penelope. Immortalised in legend and Greek myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband’s return from the Trojan war.
Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story – a tale of lust, greed and murder. This is one of the first novels to write back to Greek Myth, to tell the story of a sidelined character in the tale of Odysseus. Atwood tells a tale of the Trojan War from a feminist perspective, looking through the eyes of Penelope who has no action or agency in the original myth, only appearing as the dutiful wife.
‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters’
Medusa is so hard done to who acts like a cautionary tale about the meddling Greek gods. Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt.
When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim. Medusa is changed forever – writhing snakes for hair and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. She can look at nothing without destroying it.
Desperate to protect her beloved sisters, Medusa condemns herself to a life of shadows. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .
After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.
Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come.
Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.
As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever. This is a brilliant retelling of a myth we know so well and the reality of war from a female perspective.
Crime Fiction
Mykonos had always had a romantic reputation, until the body of a female tourist was found on a pile of bones under the floor of amountain church. The island’s new police chief starts finding bodies, bones and suspects almost everywhere he looks. This thriller has a great atmosphere, is perfect for readers who love a good mystery and also Greek legends, which the author weaves throughout her story. The reader is firmly on the side of the heroine, trying desperately to escape her fate. You will also be rooting for Inspector Kaldis, who was recently demoted from Athens to the isle of Mykonos. He’s trying to avoid the political pitfalls on the island as he pursues the Killer, whose identity is not revealed until the end of the story. This is a fun one for the reader to speculate on as the action builds to a nail-biting climax. Highly enjoyable and addictive.
SOMEONE’S POISONING PARADISE
Detective Inspector Jack Dawes is travelling to a tiny Greek island with wife Corinne, ready for a bit of sun, sea and sand.
However, one of their fellow travellers is a ruthless killer. When a storm destroys the island’s primitive communications, cutting it off from civilisation, people begin to panic. One victim is poisoned, followed swiftly by another. Then a woman is found in a grotto to St Sophia, the island’s patron saint. She is badly beaten. It feels as if the island’s visitors are being picked off one by one. Can Jack uncover the truth before the killer ups the ante?
Who will return home — and who will be sacrificed to the island?
Historical Fiction
It’s May 1941, when the island of Crete is invaded by paratroopers from the air. After a lengthy fight, thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers are forced to take to the hills or become escaping PoWs, sheltered by the Cretan villagers.
Sixty years later, Lois West and her young son, Alex, invite feisty Great Aunt Pen to a special eighty-fifth birthday celebration on Crete, knowing she has not been back there since the war. Penelope George – formerly Giorgidiou – is reluctant, but is persuaded by the fact it is the 60th anniversary of the Battle. It is time for her to return and make the journey she never thought she’d dare to. On the outward voyage from Athens, she relives her experiences in the city from her early years as a trainee nurse to those last dark days stranded on the island, the last female foreigner.
When word spreads of her visit, and old Cretan friends and family come to greet her, Lois and Alex are caught up in her epic pilgrimage and the journey which leads her to a reunion with the friend she thought she had lost forever – and the truth behind a secret buried deep in the past…
Victoria Hislop is the Queen of fiction set on the Greek Islands, ever since her book The Island
25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.
When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.
In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.
Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island – the award-winning novel where we first met Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island… and beyond. Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother’s past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.
Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip…
In The Figurine we are taken beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment that Helena McCloud has inherited from her grandparents, There she discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship.
Helena’s fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home – for cultural treasures and for herself.
It seems crazy to think of the 1960s as a historical era, but it is now 60 years ago! In this dreamy and bohemian novel, Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It’s the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra and is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever.
Romance and Self-Love
Set on the breathtaking island of Andros, The Jasmine Isle is one of the finest literary achievements in contemporary Greek literature. Mina Saltaferou is the despotic wife of a ship’s captain, Savvas Saltaferos. Her tyrannical influence over her two daughters is unquestionable and unrelenting, like nature itself. Tragedy becomes inevitable when Mina’s beautiful, eldest daughter, Orsa, is sentenced by her mother to marry a man she doesn’t love and watch as the man she does love weds another.
I love a family saga and this one spans half a century in the history of modern Greece, this novel explores the solace and joy women find in each other’s company during the insufferably long absences of their husbands, sons, and lovers. The story alternates between descriptions of domestic life and evocations of the world’s seas and ports, as it follows both the men who embark on voyages lasting months and the lives of the women who remain behind
Calli’s world has fallen apart – her relationship is suddenly over and her chances of starting a family are gone. So when she’s sent to write a magazine article about the Greek island of Ikaria, it seems the perfect escape.
Travelling to Crete, where her family is from, Calli soon realizes there is more to discover than paradise beaches and friendly locals. When her aunt Froso begins to share the story of her own teenage heartache, will the love, betrayal and revenge she reveals change Calli’s life forever?
As a young woman, Helena spent a magical holiday at Pandora, a beautiful house in Cyprus – and fell in love for the first time. Now, twenty-four years later and following the loss of her godfather, she has inherited Pandora. And, though it is a crumbling shadow of its former self, Helena returns with her family to spend the summer there.
When, by chance, Helena meets her childhood sweetheart, her past threatens to collide with her present. She knows that the idyllic beauty of Pandora masks a web of secrets that she has kept from her husband and thirteen-year-old son. And that, once its secrets have been revealed, their lives will never be the same . . .
Sophie Keech has it all. A new life in Greece with a handsome man enables Sophie to leave her mundane job and her estranged mum. But four years on, a domineering mother-in-law to be and the reality of living in Greece not being what Sophie imagined, strains her relationship with Alekos.
When her mum is involved in an accident, Sophie jumps at the chance to escape. Time to reassess her life and make amends is sorely needed. Yet an attraction to a good looking and newly divorced man, and a shock discovery, complicates things.
Can Sophie and Alekos’ love survive the distance?
Can one house hold a lifetime of secrets?
Corfu, 1930, the moment Thirza Caruthers sets foot on Corfu, memories flood back: the scent of jasmine, the green shutters of her family’s home ― and her brother Billy’s tragic disappearance years before. Returning to the Greek house, high above clear blue waters, Thirza tries to escape by immersing herself in painting ― and a passionate affair. But as webs of love, envy, and betrayal tighten around the family, buried secrets surface, is it finally time to uncover the truth about Billy’s vanishing?
New To Look Forward To.
Could discovering a family secret encourage Kat to follow her heart?
Shattered by the sudden loss of her twin, Nik, Kat is lost in grief. The comfort of family feels both soothing and suffocating, but everything changes when she inherits a house on the breathtaking Greek island of Agistri from a mysterious uncle she’s never met.
Arriving on Agistri, Kat is mesmerized by its crystalline waters, lush pine forests, and the citrus-scented air. Among the white-washed houses and warm, welcoming locals, she begins to feel her heart heal. The island offers more than solace, sparking courage in Kat to face her loss — and maybe even embrace the spark of unexpected love…
But as she unearths her family’s buried past, Kat must also confront her own fears of belonging, forgiveness — and the possibility of rediscovering happiness in the shadow of heartbreak…
I was instantly fascinated with the subject matter of this book – the 1947 Roswell Incident in New Mexico. As any good X-Files fan knows this was the most famous potential UFO sighting in history. An unidentified craft lands in a field and local workers find objects they can’t identify. There are witnesses too who can’t explain what they’ve seen, even though the government claims it’s merely a stray weather balloon. This felt very pertinent at a time when unexplained phenomena, particularly in the USA, are once again giving rise to conspiracy theories such as the Blue Beam Project. Here we meet Betty Campbell whose father Roger is based at Roswell and brings home an object from the landing site. Roger and his friend Harvey Day have been on the recovery team and are shocked by what they found. Both men served in WW2 so they’ve seen action, but this has Roger so confused he goes against orders and takes a fragment home to his family. However, when his daughter Betty handles it, she develops stigmata. Lured by a possible miracle the Catholic Church sends Sister Mary Agnes to stay at a local convent and investigate this apparent miracle.
This book was different to anything I’ve read before, but was a combination of many genres I love to read – science fiction, historical fiction and family drama. Sister Agnes is part of a local cloistered order, but here she will act as their PR in a way, liaising with local people and being the supportive face of the order. She is certainly the only person supporting the Campbell family, as Roger’s superiors start to shut down speculation. Betty is being ostracised in town and desperately needs a friend. She’s scared, confused and lonely. There are complex emotional matters here, such as how we cope when something we’ve seen surpasses our own understanding or clashes with our faith. There’s a loss of belonging – whether it be to the army, the church or a social group. I thought the interactions between Betty and Mary Anne were full of a yearning to understand and cope with a faith that might waver in the face of unexpected evidence. The clash between the Catholic Church and this encounter with the unknown is an almighty one, but it’s also a clash between the patriarchy and a young girl deemed ‘not holy enough’ to be visited by a miracle according to the bishops who come to witness the stigmata. If it isn’t a miracle what exactly is it? When the church maintains their stance that what’s above our world is heaven and the earth and all it inhabitants were all made over seven days, it seems reasonable to ask who made the other planets? Not to mention the galaxies beyond. Is Betty being punished or rewarded with this miracle? Especially when she discloses that her chosen course of study at college was going to be astrophysics. The church’s attitude is about trying to keep the status quo. Readers who have a faith or who are unable to stretch their mind beyond the established narrative on UFO sightings, might find the novel’s tone disrespectful but I quite enjoyed the anti-establishment feeling.
I would categorise the book as historical fiction more than sci-fi because it’s exploration of attitudes as they were at the time is the central theme of the book. It doesn’t take the UFO story forward or leap into alien worlds. The church’s role and attitudes were specific to the time period too, a plan of shutting downthe claims and gossip to keep the church’s current role and influence in the community. Now poor Betty’s plight would be all over Facebook in seconds. I thought the characters, particularly Betty and Mary Anne were well written and felt very real. Their interactions were authentic and rooted within a desire to help. It’s a slow but utterly unique story that I felt fully explored such an unprecedented experience and the way people were affected by it. The author’s note at the back is an absolute mine of information about Roswell and the historical documentation on the event. We’re also told about the author’s own experiences, which show how she’s managed to write these characters and experience with such authenticity. This was different to sci-fi because it focused on the earth and human interaction with a UFO experience, as well as the response of powerful institutions whose first instinct is to reinforce the existing belief systems and behaviours. I felt that Mary Anne and Betty’s relationship almost existed outside that and became a therapeutic relationship for both concerned. This was unusual, interesting and made me think about my beliefs and how I’d come to hold them.
Meet the Author
Olivia Hawker is the pen name of American author Libbie Grant. Olivia writes historical “book club” fiction, for which she has appeared on the Washington Post bestseller list and has been a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Willa Literary Award. Her novel One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, a favorite of readers around the world, was among Amazon’s Top 100 Bestselling Books of 2020. Under her real name, she writes literary fiction, and—via her podcast, Future Saint of a New Era—experiments with modern storytelling techniques that transcend the limitations of the printed word. A permanent resident of Canada, she divides her time between Victoria, BC and the San Juan Islands of Washington State. For more information, please visit hawkerbooks.com.
I loved this book about four women brought together creating an all female mini circus. Lena is the show woman of the title and as well as managing all their finances and planning, she is the ring mistress. Violet escapes another circus to become their trapeze artist. Rosie is their bareback rider, while Carmen can be a musician, acrobat and dancer whose costume is a swirling rainbow of ribbons. Set in 1910, we meet the Grand Dame of the show circuit in Scotland – Serena Linden. Serena is the show woman behind Linden’s Circus renowned throughout Scotland and the only circus to perform at Balmoral for Queen Victoria and the royal family. Serena is the old guard who has inherited her circus from her father. She is old, arthritic, bitter and quite capable of settling scores with trickery and violence. She particularly likes to thwart those who flee her employ and move to other shows or even worse,start their own.
Lena has always been at the background of the circus and fair ground scene she has lived in all her life. Her mother disappeared a long time ago and she doesn’t remember her. Now her father has died and has left just their caravan and his carousel. She is told she’d better it sell it if she wants to have a life, because her only other options are to find a husband or a factory job. That’s until Violet arrives with a proposition. Violet is known for her flame red hair and her talent on the trapeze, she is known by fairground people as the greatest trapeze artist that’s ever lived, but also for being outspoken and a bit of a loner. What if they started their own show? They’re both outcasts and have nothing to lose. When they start to look for performers they find two more women on the run. Rosie has practiced her bareback riding with her pony Tommy for years. In fact she never imagined escaping her abusive father, but couldn’t stand it any longer. Finally there’s Carmen, a beautiful Spanish girl with luscious black hair and a lot of secrets. She dances and performs acrobatics in her rainbow ribbons. With Lena as ringmaster and an old but serviceable tent can they last the season?
I loved spending time with these wonderful women. I wanted to mother Rosie who desperately needs to let the truth out about her father and the after dark fumbling in the laundry cupboard. Her relationship with Tommy the pony is so beautiful because of the trust they have in each other, so when he fell ill I was so worried. Her burgeoning feelings for Violet are so pure and totally separate from the shame she’s holding onto. Violet is brilliantly herself and never tries to be anything else. She has a preference for women and has years of experience in this world, knowing how careful she must be. She knows that leaving Linden’s was risky so when their show is sabotaged she wonders if it might be Serena’s goons. Especially when they wreak the ultimate revenge on her specifically. Violet doesn’t know how she’ll cope if she ever can’t fly. Carmen keeps her cards close to her chest but somehow finds a home with the other women. She holds a lot of shame, for the years she spent on the streets, destitute and selling the only thing she has left. It’s this past that threatens her place in the show, when a misunderstanding comes between her and Lena.
I really enjoyed Lena, who’s strong and old, perfectly capable of organising three women and travelling from place to place iin season. It’s Lena who gets up early, has a dip in the river or stream then sets up the camp fire and cooks breakfast for the others. I could imagine her in her usual ‘ringmaster’ outfit, with the combination of the masculine clothes her long hair and red lipstick bringing a sass and sexiness to her role. Love is her undoing. It’s an instant attraction between her and Violet’s brother Harry, who no longer works on the shows but has become a music hall singer. He offers advice on the show and protection when a couple of men lurk around the caravan, seeing four women as sitting ducks. When the women’s luck changes and Violet is angry and frustrated she lets slip a secret that breaks Lena’s heart. The women come apart. Can Lena find out about the sabotage and her family history by visiting Serena Linden?
Lena is determined to understand her past , uncovering a kinship between her and one of the others that has been hidden for years. She is also determined to find out who committed the act of sabotage against Violet. Was it about the show or was it more personal? She becomes the head of this family, determined to bring them all back together. A community that fully supports each other, who listen and understand the circumstances and pain that has brought them here. I was rooting for all of these women and not just the show, but their new found independence and friendships. It was those evenings where they were talking in the caravan after a show, too full of adrenaline to sleep. Or the warm and sunny days when they got chance to swim in a local lake or river, to wash their hair. Then there were the joint efforts to save Rosie’s pony. It’s these moments that are just as magical for these women as the seconds before Violet lets go and flies through the air.
Out May 1st 2025
Meet the Author
Emma Cowing is a journalist and author. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Cheshire Novel Prize, and longlisted for the 2023 Bath Novel Award and Blue Pencil First Novel Award. She lives in Glasgow with her husband Jonathan and their cat, Moses. The Show Woman is her first novel.
It was a joy to be back in Molly the Maid’s company again. It always takes just a couple of sentences for me to feel like I never left her world. In some ways her life could be seen as unchanged. She’s still Molly, as wholly herself as ever, living in her late grandmother’s flat with her fiancé Juan, chef at the Regency Grand. In other ways things have changed, Molly manages the maids and has become ‘Events Manager’ so she’s definitely gone up in the world at work. Two important events loom in the near future – Molly and Juan’s wedding at City Hall is on the horizon – but today the two darlings of the antique world are filming an episode of their TV show Hidden Treasures in the tearoom of the hotel. Beagle and Brown are known jointly as the Bees. They wear a lot of velvet, bow ties and smoking jackets and are the married presenters of the show that runs like our own Antiques Roadshow. People queue to have their valuables appraised in the hope of either owning a secret masterpiece or appearing on the TV. At the last moment, before they leave the flat that morning, Juan suggests Molly takes her grandmother’s box of treasures, including a highly decorated egg that came to her from the Grimsthorpe estate. When the Bees see this particular treasure their eyes light up. They seem to know immediately that this is very special and they must get it on camera. As the cameras roll they tell Molly that this looks like a lost Russian imperial egg, possibly the prototype for all the ones that followed. It’s one of a kind, decorated with rubies and emeralds by Fabergé himself. It’s worth could be several million dollars. Molly doesn’t seem to take the news in and wants to carry on as normal, but as the clip is shared online it becomes impossible and Mr Preston has to take them home. The couple sit in their flat utterly shell shocked. Will life ever be the same again?
Things go from bad to worse when Molly agrees to auction the egg at the hotel, again run by Brown and Beagle. It might be the only way to return things to normal. She can’t imagine being wealthy and so far has only committed to a slightly larger wedding. As the auction reaches fever pitch, all eyes are on the egg in it’s glass case on the podium. As the hammer goes down at ten million dollars there are celebrations across the room and no one notices, until the Bees draw attention back to the egg, that there’s just an empty case. The author follows this story as the police are called in and an investigations get underway, but between this narrative are chapters from the past. It isn’t long after the auction when Mr Preston reunites Molly with a different relic from the past – her late grandmother’s diary. The ornate key to open it has always been in her grandmother’s cabinet but Molly has never known what it was for and she isn’t ready to open it just yet. We still get the tale though, written directly to Molly in a series of letters. We might learn about her past with Mr Preston, but also why she was estranged from her whole family. We also might find out what might her give up her daughter, Molly’s mother Maggie.
Molly is the heart and soul of the book though and she doesn’t disappoint. She is genuinely flummoxed by people’s reaction after the valuation. As guests and even fellow staff start to photograph her working, Molly just wants to get on. In the main people just want to congratulate her but Cheryl is her usual self, taking and selling pictures of NYC’s newest potential millionaire. Molly doesn’t understand what’s changed because she’s the same person with exactly the same values as before. When the egg is stolen, all she wants to do is help the police to recover it, although she isn’t necessarily happy about the chaos it’s brought to her life. Molly is a great detective though and admired by Police Detective Stark for her ability to notice patterns and follow the logic of a case. She also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the hotel, which might be invaluable when working out how someone could steal something in plain sight. I did feel sorry for Molly, especially when she’s talked into trying on wedding dresses in a high end store by her protégée Lily. The pair are horrified to find out it is a publicity stunt for the TV cameras. Molly truly believes she has everything she could want – her job, Juan, Mr Preston, their home. She’s almost given up on her mother who does make an appearance here. A child never loses that tiny bit of hope when it comes to a parent and it’s so heartbreaking to see Molly taking this chance. I was desperately hoping Maggie was there for the right reasons.
Molly’s grandmother’s narrative reads like a fairy tale. A young girl with wealthy but distant parents, becomes a pawn in their game when fortunes are running low. They know that their business is going to fail and a rival is trying to buy it up. As the money dries up their daughter might be the only way they can revive their fortunes. Unfortunately Molly’s grandmother is more interested in her education than making an advantageous marriage. She’s fallen in love already although she’s fighting it. John is the nephew of their housekeeper, has a scholarship at the same school and has been given access to family’s library for his studies. They have an instant spark with lots of banter and academic competition, but her head is turned when she has the chance to date the fabulously handsome and wealthy son of the man who’s buying their company. If she pleases him, maybe their fortunes will be saved. He’s certainly charming, but is that all surface? The dairy feels like a cautionary tale for young women and men do not come out of it very well. Molly doesn’t really need to read it as she’s always listened to her grandmother’s advice. However, it might just give her a clue…
This is a charming and heart-warming read that brings Molly full circle in terms of her background and having her life exactly where she wants it. There is a special joy in a character like this who you can absolutely root for. Her modest wants in life are refreshing and old fashioned in a way. As many point out, it’s rare to see one of the little people, rewarded by a quirk of fate. I knew there were so many obstacles to overcome, not just the theft but the question of ownership and provenance if it was returned. I knew that it would be a great read either way because Molly is the sort of character who will find her happiness with or without the golden egg.
Meet the Author
Nita Prose is the author of the Molly the Maid series, including THE MISTLETOE MYSTERY, THE MYSTERY GUEST, and THE MAID, which has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and was published in over forty countries. A #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestseller and a GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick, THE MAID won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction, the Fingerprint Award for Debut Novel of the Year, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Barry Award for Best First Mystery. THE MAID was also an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel. Nita lives in Toronto, Canada, in a house that is moderately clean.
I was so lucky to be sent a copy of this new book in the Jake Jackson series, based on a conversation about my love of Martha – an abrupt but super intelligent analyst and crime writer. I love a no nonsense woman and Martha is one of the best bits of this series. After Jake and his ‘team’ tangled with an international criminal gang in the last book, this is more of a home grown mystery but just as dangerous. There has been an archaeological dig close to Little Sky and a recent hoard of treasure found close by. The ownership of this treasure is in dispute because it’s unclear who owns the land it was found in. Meanwhile, work carries on for the archaeologists, academics and local enthusiasts who have been working on the site, but when a body is found it must shut down. It’s hard for new DCI McAllister to understand the motive and being new to the area he enlists Jake’s help, both for his investigative skills and his local knowledge. The community are aware that several nuisance letters have been sent to the dig office and various people who’ve worked on the site. They’re a strange mix of threats, Bible verses and ancient prophecies signed off by Wulfnoth – an ancient Briton purportedly from the area. The writer promises a terrible end for the dig and whoever benefits from the treasure found. Can Jake find the killer before anyone else is hurt?
Again it’s mainly the brilliant characters that attract me in this novel. Although it’s also interesting to see Jake working with his team, I noticed that Livia is fully committed this time and has definitely earned a chair at the table with Jake, Martha and Aletheia. They are definitely growing closer, since the finale of the last case ended with Livia driving through the wall of her own front room to save their lives. She and her daughter have relocated to Little Sky while the house is being repaired. I must admit I didn’t fully take on board all the dig characters, but the dig itself and the history behind it was really interesting. I’ve often wondered how digs are run and they’re every bit as complex as I thought, with a real mix of motivations and different pressures. Some people have their jobs and reputations on the line, while others seem to have more personal reasons for taking part. What’s difficult for Jake to understand is the gap between letters written when the first dig started and those that came when the second dig site and treasure were discovered. It’s as if Wulfnoth comes out of retirement for some reason, possibly the treasure or could it be more complex than that?
One of the other interesting aspects of the story is the importance of belonging and the sacredness of land. The fact that the burial place of the title holds both ancient and recent burials shows an interesting continuation of the land’s purpose. Jake hears one of the academics talking about different layers or strata of soil, but it all looks like mud to him. The same can be said of the ancient remains, having newly buried bodies on top, as if years of history is mimicking the layers of soil. We live upon years and years of history, something I think about regularly having never moved far away from the River Trent. I have ancestors who are Dutch and arrived in the area with engineer Vermuyden in the 14th Century, designing and creating a system of drainage that would create much of Lincolnshire’s farmland. The fact that my father has spent more than thirty years of his life working as a land drainage engineer, without knowing this history, feels like an echo but also a sense of belonging to that particular land. If I’m ever feeling a bit lost I go the river, take off my shoes and stand barefoot on the bank. Then I know I’m home and on the bank of the same river where I took my first steps. Jake talks about how human spirituality is linked to water, from sacred springs to floating lanterns and wishing wells. Humans have cast their prayers and wishes on water for generations. Livia brings up belonging in one of their case discussions. She doesn’t understand how anyone could feel so connected to ‘patches of ground’. Aletheia points out that Livia has a rare ability to belong, to fit exactly where she is. Her own family roots are in Ghana, but points out that she is now where she is because her ancestors were uprooted. People who are removed or separated from land that belonged to their ancestors for generations can struggle to belong. It’s Livia’s ability to belong, as another woman of colour that she’s really commenting on, because Aletheia does understand that if someone is cheated out of their birthright it can become an obsession.
Across the book, new relationships are being built and I love that, in what could have been a very lonely place, Jake’s has a healthy support system around him. I did worry a little for Martha though, even though the author writes her with great affection I did feel her ‘aloneness’ in this novel, something I’m describing carefully because there’s a difference between alone and lonely. I feel he writes about her disability with great understanding. Martha lost both her legs in a shoot out when working as a detective and he describes her as suffering constant pain. I’ve suffered chronic pain for many years, particularly nerve pain so I know how strange and maddening it can be. I have had referred pain, very similar to phantom limb pain, where the site of pain bears no relation to the actual problem. Without my medication I have constant burning sensation outside my body – for those of you who are a certain age I often describe this as my ‘Ready Brek’ feeling. The author refers to Martha’ ability to function on drugs that are prescription and those that aren’t. Her skill is a sad one, known to most pain patients, where she copes with a certain level of pain and can still function but there are also days where functioning is impossible. There’s a real sense of sadness that while she can numb the pain it is ever present. I found this portrayal so authentic and possibly researched through lived experience.
Jake is already an introspective man but he has a lot to think about in this book. He and Livia have decided to start a family together, much to Diana’s disgust. It almost seems like fate when his ex-wife Faye needs to see him. He’s just starting to have concerns about infertility, because he and Faye split up after a traumatic time trying to have a family. He’s worried that it’s taking a while for him and Livia. What if he’s the problem? It’s immediately obvious when they meet that Faye is pregnant and they have a lovely heart to heart in the park. It’s clear that Faye is in a good place and Jake is so happy for her, but nagging doubts are creeping in. If Faye can get pregnant without him, what does it mean for him and Livia’s chances? I still find many male detectives and investigators who don’t have this complex inner life and I love that Jake does. He might seem like a moody loner at times, someone who keeps his feelings hidden even from himself, but he’s just a deep thinker and so empathic. Even when he finds a body, his response is different. He is appalled by the body of one murdered woman who has been left exposed and was potentially murdered during sex. He feels for her dignity and has an urge to cover her up, even though he knows he can’t and must preserve the crime scene as is. It’s as if he takes on the shame this woman might have felt at being left exposed and perhaps taken for a fool by her lover. He has such a strongly developed feminine side and this helps enormously when dealing with Diana. She is clashing with Livia about potentially having a new baby around. Jake is the one who manages to calm her down and show her the positives. I’m so glad Jake has Little Sky and all it offers to balance out these tumultuous feelings. I think his Uncle Arthur knew him very well.
I pre-ordered this book as soon as I read the blurb. I could see myself falling in love with this story of four pioneering women who attend Oxford University as part of the first cohort to gain an actual degree. The four women arrive at Oxford in a time of great upheaval. The First World War has ended and women have just been awarded the vote. Women have experienced more freedom during war time, by working to replace enlisted men, volunteering for the war effort. Beatrice comes from a progressive family, with a suffragette mother who attended Oxford herself. Beatrice is very political, obviously a feminist and is used to being noticed, as she’s usually the tallest woman in a room. Marianne is a scholarship student, but she seems to have secrets. She returns home every other weekend and struggles financially but she is determined to get what education she can. Ottoline (Otto) comes from a wealthy family, but is haunted by volunteering for a nursing role during the war. She found it so distressing, she was redeployed as a driver giving patients transportation rather than working on the front line. She’s had symptoms of PTSD ever since, but also feelings of shame that she couldn’t do her duty. Dora also struggles with the consequences of war. She received a letter from her fiancé Charles’s regiment to inform her he’d been killed, then only two weeks later her brother George also lost his life. She still sees Charles wherever she goes and being so close to his university only serves to keep him at the forefront of her mind. These four girls are assigned to a corridor where the rooms start with the number eight, giving them their affectionate nickname. This seemingly random allocation starts strong friendships as the girls help each other negotiate their university work, their memories of the war and being taken seriously by their male counterparts.
Oxford University is the oldest English- speaking university in the world, having and I was amazed to read it was founded in the 11th Century. The first colleges for men were fully established 200 years later and the Bodleian Library opened in 1602. Women were only starting show interest in an Oxford education in the late 1800s and four women’s colleges were established, however even after years of negotiation to do the same courses as men, women had to be chaperoned to lectures. I was also amazed that despite doing exactly the same exams, women could not be awarded degrees and dons would still refuse to teach them. I couldn’t imagine doing all that work, then having nothing tangible to show for it. It must have been soul-destroying. The author’s story begins after women got the vote and it took until 1920 for women to become fully enrolled at the university as men had been, a ritual called matriculation. The author lays out this facts at the beginning of the novel, which is brilliant for setting the scene generally but also allows us into what is an exclusive world with it’s own language and culture. She separates her book into the named terms – such as Michaelmas or Hilary – and lays out the dress code and rules, different for men and women. She also lets us into what the exams are called and has a glossary at the back in case you get lost. Finally she splits her first chapter between the four girls so we get a really good sense of who they are and where they’re from.
This is a real character led novel from Joanna Miller, creating a similar feel to those novels I loved as a girl such as the Little Women series or What Katy Did At School. With both of those novels I felt like I knew the characters and they would be great fun to be friends with. I loved the secret societies, the scrapes they got into and the character building lessons learned. This has all that, but with great emotional heft and real, gritty issues from that time period. I loved how the characters developed over time and how each of the friends supported but also changed each other with their different backgrounds and perspectives on the world. I felt Marianne’s predicament strongly, in that she’s landed with three friends who are reasonably comfortable financially. I felt it when they all swapped presents for Christmas, but Marianne couldn’t afford to buy for each of them, so instead created a framed favourite poem each. Her offerings are always from the heart and she’s definitely the most thoughtful and most serious of the girls. She also has the hurdle of illness to climb over, as well as whatever takes her home on weekends. The others notice that she’s never managed her reading so what is she doing? She has the constant fear of not passing the year and losing her scholarship, so she’s mentally preparing herself for the eventuality of only spending one year studying. Ottoline is probably her opposite, in fact if it wasn’t for her love of maths she might be tearing about London with her sister and the rest of the Bright Young Things. There’s the rather imperious side to Otto, such as the way she’s always scuttling into tearooms and the nickname ‘Baroness’ that she earned in the war. However, there’s a softer side too and that terrible sense of failure she still feels. Yet she definitely comes through for Marianne when she contracts flu. Otto proves capable of dealing with bodily fluids, cooling Marianne in the bath and even washing her down with a damp cloth. She is even the first to uncover Marianne’s secret and guards it ferociously.
Beatrice is living with the weight of her mother’s success, both as a student of Oxford and a suffragette. She is a woman of ‘considerable reknown’ and this has given Beatrice an interesting childhood. She now has several hobbies – writing letters to politicians and watching debates in the commons, propagating orchids and being able to read Ancient Greek. She seems the perfect fit for Oxford but has never really lived in close proximity to other young women or lived anywhere but the family home in Bloomsbury. Two key events in the book seem to shape her future. She meets a young woman called Ursula who is outspoken, political and wears men’s clothing, which is much more comfortable than women’s. Beatrice is bowled over by her new acquaintance and is determined to wear men’s shirts and ties from then on. There is also the ceremony for her mother who will finally be awarded an Oxford degree. There’s a constant push and pull between who Beatrice is and where she has come from; does she accept and enjoy the legacy of her mother, or does she move away from it? Through her we learn about some of the most harrowing aspects of the suffragette’s fight, particularly the way the women were treated as protestors and prisoners. Dora is a delightful girl from the country, who comes to university seeming rather old-fashioned. Her longer skirts and waist length hair seem incongruous when hemlines are rising and hair is being shingled shorter than ever. Yet she’s weighed down with the early throes of bereavement and has come to Oxford in the hope of feeling closer to the memory of her fiancé who should have come to Queen’s College. She wants more from life than to pour tea, play whist and prop up her mother whose grief is inconsolable. Dora will perhaps change the most and with a terrible shock to come, she may have to make a decision between the new life she has created or her old one.
I loved every moment I spent with these young women. They are all equally interesting and important so I couldn’t pick one I gelled with most. I loved Beatrice’s awakening, her straight forward manner and her bravery. Otto made me laugh and became so much more nuanced than the spoiled rich girl she could have been. Dora’s gentle strength is admirable, especially when it is tested. Marianne is the dark horse of the group, but she’s surprising and has a strong sense of what is right for her. This is a favourite time period for me so I loved the clothing, the outings, the rising tide of women wanting more from life than a ring and motherhood. These women are the birth of who we are now and I think the author was really successful in portraying issues that are still relevant. As we see women’s rights being eroded and the misogyny on social media, the novel is also about how men treat women. It can even be seen in small ways, such as the pranks played on the women by male students. However, it’s also the control wielded by a father figure or professor, the deception and double-standards men use to manipulate women, the sexual predator or abuser who finds a chance moment or a position of power to commit violence. I believe that just the chance to pursue their education with the freedom men take for granted, is a huge step for the women in terms of status but also self-confidence. However, it is the friendship of these four women, first and foremost, that helps them grow. Their unflinching support and understanding of each other is beautifully drawn and brings to mind something I’ve always said to women on my ‘authentic self’ workshops; men may come and go, but it’s the women in your life who will hold you up’.
Out now from Fig Tree
Meet the Author
Joanna has always loved stories – even from an early age, when the Headteacher complained to her parents that she had read all the books in the school library. Joanna went on to study English at Exeter College, Oxford and later returned to the University to train as a teacher.
After ten years in education, she set up an award-winning poetry gift business. During this time, she wrote thousands of poems to order and her rhyming verse was filmed twice by the BBC.
Unable to resist the lure of the classroom, Joanna recently returned to Oxford University to study for a diploma in creative writing. THE EIGHTS is her debut novel and is inspired by her love of local history and historical fiction.
When Joanna is not writing, she is either walking her dog or working in the local bookshop. She lives with her husband and three children near the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire, UK.
