Tag: Friendship

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Drownings by Hazel Barkworth

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is a fascinating read from Hazel Barkworth, capturing so much about the times we’re in while also exploring themes of identity, obsession, use of social media and modern day witch-hunts. Serena was born to swim. Her body is honed by years of training to be the best. When she thinks about her body, she imagines it sleek and pointed like an arrow shooting through the water. Her trainer Nico thinks she can go as far as the Olympics and within the family her winning streak makes her the centre of attention. Then one day it all goes wrong, because despite her training, focus and visualising the win, she loses. She can’t fathom why or what went wrong, but to add to her shock she then slips in the changing area and damages her knee. Now she’s on crutches and cannot swim at all. She knows she will not be ready to meet the next Olympics and the disappointment is crushing. Even worse, within her family, attention shifts to her cousin Zara. Zara has always had issues with her body image, but started an Instagram account promoting body positivity. Her curated Insta in shades of peach, teal and gold, is gathering momentum. She is blossoming in her success and has enough followers for companies to start sending her free products in the hope she might promote them. Just as Zara is making peace with her body and finding success, Serena has no idea who she is. With most of her time previously taken up with diet, exercise, warm-ups and time-splits, she doesn’t recognise herself. Her body only had one purpose and now it’s let her down. How can she be Serena, when the Serena she knew doesn’t even exist any more?

Serena decides to take up a place at university, at Leysham Hall, where her cousin already has a place. Here they both fall under the spell of their feminist lecturer in history, Jane. Serena meets her entirely by accident when walking the grounds one night. She sees a young woman poised by the edge of the river, that rushes downstream at this point of the campus. There have been warnings about this stretch of water, young women going missing and discussions about lighting the area always come to nothing. When the girl disappears, Serena rushes forward to help her. There is no hesitation when she realises the girl isn’t a strong swimmer and is in serious trouble. She leaps in and then Jane appears, just in time to help Serena bring the girl up to the surface and out. She doesn’t notice much about her that night, but she does end up in Jane’s history tutorial group and from that point on she feels drawn to the academic. It’s not a sexual attraction, she doesn’t want to be with her, it’s more that she wants to be like her. She loves the unfussy but stylish way that Jane dresses. She admires the knowledge and passion she has about her subject. Totally at odds with her dress sense, Jane’s tutorial room is a riot of colour turning the functional and boring space into something cozy and colourful. There are so many mementoes of places she’s been, feminist posters, colourful rugs and cushions. Mostly, I felt Serena is drawn to the fact that Jane seems so entirely sure of who she is.

A few of my reads this year have touched on a couple of very specific themes and when I thought about why, I could see that this is a product of the times we’re in. There’s the theme of witches and the witch hunting of the 17th Century which grew rife due to the obsession of James I /James VI of Scotland. The second was the influence and power gained by becoming part of all-male, elite, private school gangs like the Bullingdon Club, a club in which David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne were all members. The club carried out ‘pranks’ such as trashing the restaurant they met in and simply fixing the problem with family money. They burned ten and twenty pound notes in front of homeless people. I also believe this club may have been the source of the Infamous David Cameron and pig story. At Serena’s college it’s the Carnforth Club, named after their school founder they are robed from head to foot to keep their identities secret. As far as witches go, the words witch-hunt are being co-opted by men in powerful positions who don’t like it when their actions have consequences. We have seen it in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, where men who are finally facing courts of law after years of abuse and sexual assault allegations, are claiming they are victims. The most recent is Russel Brand who has used his YouTube channel to protest his innocence, but has the tried to rehabilitate himself by becoming ‘born again’ and hiding within the Trump family, of all places. These and other men like Prince Andrew. Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein have all used the excuse that the media want to take them down. However, it’s not a witch-hunt when you’re one of the most privileged demographics of the world. If you’re moaning about witch-hunts you must genuinely be a victim and since most of these men are always punching down, I think we’re being gaslit.

The original witch-hunts were brutal and targeted mainly women. Jane tells them that witch trials took place where they now study and in fact, the place where Serena had jumped in to rescue a student was where witches were ducked. After a brutal interrogation that included torture, coercion and violation, suspected witches were taken to a river and ‘ducked’. If they drowned they were innocent but if they lived they were declared a witch and burned alive. Jane places this within a feminist framework. We know that ‘witches’ were usually women who lived alone, earned their own living from medical and herbal knowledge, often helped deliver babies in their area and helped other women. By offering advice on things like fertility, preventing pregnancy and helping girls in trouble, local ‘wise women’ gave the women around them some control and autonomy when it came to their own bodies. A woman like his is a threat to men and to the teachings of the established church. No wonder James I worked to the edict from Exodus ‘ thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. Working as a counsellor and in chronic pain management for years I often realise I have quite a few friends who might come under suspicion from the witch finders.

Both Serena and Zara are dazzled by Jane, Serena has even wondered if Jane and Zara may be attracted to each other. Using Zara’s quite considerable social media platform, they encourage young women in the college to speak out about any sexist and misogynistic treatment they’ve suffered there, particularly if linked to the Carnforth Club. They are soon inundated with messages alleging everything from online abuse to sexual assault. Their anger comes to a head one night at a rally where both Zara and Jane will speak to any of the students who will turn up. Round a campfire they start to share their stories, with the evening rounded off with a call to arms. They must campaign for change. At the crucial moment, Zara is expecting the megaphone to be passed over, but instead Jane chooses to hand it to Serena. Fired up by the atmosphere Serena dives in and starts to rally the women and she is inspired. The night ends as Serena starts to lead a ritualistic dance and before she knows it she’s the leader, whipping up the women into a frenzy as they take off their clothes and follow her. Next day Serena is a little bemused at what happened, but it felt right at the time and she went with it. Even as she goes to sleep, someone is sharing a photograph of her naked and marching in the light from the campfire. It’s sent to the whole college. In the aftermath, Jane wants them to keep up the momentum and break into the hall, where a portrait of the college founder and instigator of the Carnforth Club has pride of place. While most of the group are happy to break in and cause mischief, Jane is considering something much darker and more dangerous. Will everyone go along with her plan? Since the rally, Serena has noticed that Zara is not herself. She seems to have lost some of her audience and her confidence seems to be following. Now that Serena is finding herself, it seems that Zara is losing herself.

The tension really builds here as the author takes us into final third of this thriller and I was fascinated to see how it turned out. I felt for Serena who seems to have found confidence and a sense of what kind of woman she wants to be, but is it real? She struck me as one of those children who’ve been pushed into specialising too early in life with no back-up plan. In all those dark, early mornings at the pool and the times she had to say no to social occasions to train, there’s someone who isn’t allowed to explore who she is and what she enjoys. Her time is so limited and she doesn’t form any meaningful friendships either. How do we know what we love in life if we’ve never tried anything else? She also has a very distant relationship with her own body that’s merely an athletic instrument. She’s used to ignoring aches and pains, divorcing her mind from how far she’s pushing her growing body and never seeing her it as a source of pleasure. Then suddenly she’s surplus to requirements and has no other plan. Placed into the chaos of fresher’s week and meeting so many different and strong characters must be bewildering. When people ask about herself, who is she? She struck me as a borderline personality, who takes on the issues and characteristics of whoever she’s with. She’s vulnerable, used to obeying authority figures and having them control everything down to her food. Zara seems equally fragile though, growing up in the shadow of a cousin who might go to the Olympics is not easy. She’s so proud of her influencer award and in a way, her Insta has been as much about her own validation and acceptance of her body, as it has about inspiring others. Once her star begins to fade, Zara’s confidence plummets and she becomes desperate to make her mark. The author shows us how fragile today’s young women can be with misogyny seemingly rife and the added pressure of a global audience on social media. I wasn’t sure how far either of these girls might go to impress their tutor and display who they are. That’s if this is who they are? This was a brilliant contemporary thriller that asks serious questions about how the authentic self forms within this confusing and dangerous world.

Published 1st August by Review.

Meet the Author

Hazel grew up in Stirlingshire and North Yorkshire before studying English at Oxford. She then moved to London where she spent her days working as a cultural consultant, and her nights dancing in a pop band at glam rock clubs. Hazel is a graduate of both the Oxford University MSt in Creative Writing and the Curtis Brown Creative Novel-Writing course. She now works in Oxford, where she lives with her partner. Heatstroke was her first novel and The Drownings is her second.

Posted in Random Things Tours

This Motherless Land by Nikki May.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This book was an absolute joy to read, which may sound strange considering the subject matter but somehow it awakened my senses, stirred my emotions and kept me reading. In fact I read it so quickly I was finished in an evening that turned into morning before I knew it. Funke lives in Nigeria with her mother, known as Misses Lissie to most people, her father and brother Femi. Mum is a teacher and Dad works at the university. Their entire world is shattered one morning as they make their normal run to school when their mother’s car fails to stop and ploughs directly under a lorry. The drivers side of the car is destroyed but Funke’s side is left completely unscathed. She loses her mother and brother in a moment. In his grief, her father Babatunde is inconsolable and he takes it out on Funke. How did she get out without a scratch? Encouraged by his superstitious mother, he calls Funke a witch and insists she must be protected by some magical being. Seeing how Funke will be treated by her grandmother, her aunties put their heads together and decide she should be sent for a while to her mother’s family in England. Her white family. Funke is ripped away from everything she knows and sent to The Ring, the mansion where her mother and Aunty Margot grew up. There, although she isn’t being hit or accused of evil spells, she feels the resentment of Aunt Margot and her cousin Dominic. They call her Kate, after all it’s easier than pronouncing Funke isn’t it? There’s no colour, bland food and where she was accused of being white in Nigeria, here she is seen as black – with all the racist connotations that come alongside it. Especially in white, upperclass Britain. England’s only saving grace is her cousin Liv. Liv scoops her up and feeds her comfort food. The problem is it’s not the food or the comfort she’s used to.

This is a book about being in between. Funke’s mother was ostracised by her family for marrying a Nigerian man. Aunt Margot sees Lizzie’s relationship with Babatunde as the reason for her own engagement being called off just before the wedding. In her eyes Lizzie was selfish, pursuing her own feelings at the expense of her family. She feels Lizzie had the looks, the charisma and the man she loved, while Margot was left heartbroken and with parents who seemed to miss Lizzie more than they enjoyed Margot’s presence. She sees Funke as her mother’s daughter and a threat to her own children. Her parents seem to love Kate, as they’ve christened her, and Margot doesn’t want her to take all the attention, the love and their eventual inheritance. She’s a bitter woman who is very hard to like. Sadly for Funke, history repeats itself and on the night of their prom a series of events mean they must drive home early. Liv is drunk and high. Yet even Funke, who is teetotal, feels unwell. Dominic throws caution to the wind and decides to drive them home, despite his own drinking, and a terrible accident occurs. Everyone survives but Liv suffers a bad break to her leg. In the aftermath Dominic asks Funke to admit to driving, which she agrees to, not knowing that covering for her cousins will lead to her life being uprooted for the second time.

Funke feels like she belongs nowhere. In Nigeria when her mother was alive they had a wonderful life, even if children would follow her singing a song about her pale skin. That’s nothing to the blatant racism she faces in England, but she faces it down and it fuels her will to succeed. Then she’s back in Nigeria and is again the odd one out. This time she’s in her dad’s new family and their lifestyle in the village is very different to the childhood she remembers on the university compound. His new wife and their children eat and live in ways her dad would have dismissed as ‘bush’ when Funke was a child. Her small brother and sister are black and fascinated with her pale, mixed race skin. Things are familiar, such as the spicy red stew and the heat, but it’s a changed land without her mother in it. At least in England she didn’t expect her mother to be there. Now she faced with the shock of her absence all over again. Will she ever find home? Meanwhile, back in Britain, when Liv finally comes round from the accident she asks for Kate. What will her mother tell her?

I thought the author brilliantly showed how different people cope with mental pain. Funke takes a bottle top from her mother’s hoard (for craft projects) and holds it in her hand so hard that it cuts into her palm. Liv is horrified that she’s hurt herself like this, but for Funke it’s the only thing that distracts her from the grief of losing her and her brother. Liv also deals with motherly absence, but externalises her feelings in a different way. She has a mother who is present, just not for her. Liv starts to drink excessively, uses marijuana and acid tabs to blank out the feelings that she isn’t loved and therefore isn’t worth anything. When we’re children and we’re rejected by a parent, we never assume it’s the parent’s fault and we don’t stop loving them. Instead we internalise their criticism and think we are the problem. Liv has a lot of casual sex because she thinks it sex is all she really has to offer. Meanwhile Funke struggles to give love and truly trust someone. She is in a relationship with a young man who is keeping his true sexuality under wraps, because it’s not accepted in his family or community. The younger people are aware he’s gay and call Funke his ‘beard’, but how far can she take this relationship? What if he suggests a more permanent arrangement and is Funke willing to give her life away so easily? The the same root cause, a loss of the mother figure they so needed, affects both girls, it just manifests in different ways. With them both on opposite continents, how will they ever find each other again? The spaces between can be painful and isolating places to be and the author depicts that with such tenderness and understanding. However, liminal spaces are also freeing. Being in-between gives us the space to choose, to take bits and pieces from each place, each family and make our own identity. I found the end chapter so uplifting and it gave me hope that we can each forge our own identity, once we’ve explored who we truly are. This is a fascinating, touching story about growing up and how we become who we are. It’s vibrant, atmospheric and an absolute must read.

Meet the Author

Born in Bristol, raised in Lagos, I’m proud to be Anglo-Nigerian. I ran a successful ad agency before turning to writing and now live in Dorset with my husband, two standard schnauzers, and way too many books.

My debut novel WAHALA was inspired by a long (and loud) lunch with friends. It was published around the world in January 2022 and is being adapted into a major BBC TV drama. This Motherless Land is my second novel.

Posted in Netgalley

The Last Train from Paris by Julie Greenwood

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The year is 1939, and in Paris, France a young woman is about to commit a terrible betrayal…

For Iris, each visit to her mother in St Mabon’s Cove, Cornwall has been the same – a serene escape from the city. But today, as she breaths in the salt air on the doorstep of her beloved childhood home, a heavy weight of anticipation settles over her. Iris knows she’s adopted, but any questions about where she came from have always been shut down by her parents, who can’t bear to revisit the past.

Now, Iris can’t stop thinking about what she’s read on the official paperwork: BABY GIRL, FRANCE, 1939 – the year war was declared with Nazi Germany.

When Iris confronts her mother, she hits the same wall of pain and resistance as whenever she mentions the war. That is, until her mother tearfully hands her an old tin of letters, tucked neatly beside a delicate piece of ivory wool.

Retreating to the loft, Iris steels herself to at last learn the truth, however painful it might be. But, as she peels back each layer of history before her, a sensation of dread grows inside her. The past is calling, and its secrets are more intricate and tangled than Iris could ever have imagined.

I always say that we read books at the right time. Having COVID has left me in bed with very little to do except read between doses of Sudafed! So I’ve been catching up on some of those books still languishing unread on my NetGalley shelf, which is always overstuffed. How strange then that this pick had a link to a blog tour book I’m reading this month, both featuring mothers separated from their children but one set in a Cold War Berlin and this one set in pre-WWII Paris. I love books filled with emotion and those based in pivotal moments of history, especially disability history, so this one would sit perfectly within that Venn diagram. I was drawn in immediately by this gripping story, set across two timelines; one set in 1939 and the other in the 1960s. It didn’t take me long at all to get into ‘The Last Train From Paris’. In fact by the time I got to the end of the first few pages, I knew that I was in for a treat and from then on, I found it increasingly difficult to put the book to one side for any length of time. I was spot on too! I was moved by the story and by the bravery of these remarkable women. Nora and Sabine meet and a form a strong friendship in pre-war Paris, after Nora travels from the UK to join a catering course. In the later timeline, the early 1960s, we meet Iris, a young woman who has questions about the circumstances of her birth.

Juliet is a new author to me and I really enjoyed her style. Her characters feel genuine and show such bravery in turbulent times. She doesn’t stint on the gritty detail of wartime life in Paris and the darkness of occupation. She focuses on an aspect of the Nazi’s eugenicist policies that I think is only just coming to light in fiction. Many families were desperate to escape Europe, as the Nazis plans for the Jewish population start to become clear but Sabine’s little family have a different reason. To give you some background, it’s a lesser known fact that the Nazis targeted those with physical and mental disabilities by inciting a belief that they were a burden to the state. A programme of euthanasia was devised at a Tiergartenstrasse 4, the building giving the name of the plan as T4. In 1933 they passed a piece of legislation called The Law for the Protection of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring pushing forced sterilisation of those regarded as ‘unfit’. Their list ranged from conditions like epilepsy, but also suspected long-term illness and mental illness such as schizophrenia or addictions. They targeted nursing homes, asylums and special schools for their victims and over three years, even before the outbreak of war, had sterilised 360,000 people. Once war broke out they started to kill disabled children and adults, for this book the author has concentrated on the children. Children under three who had illnesses like Down’s Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy (or were thought to have an illness) were forwarded to a panel of medical experts to be assessed and approved for euthanasia. Parents were misled, told their children were receiving expert or enhanced care, then told they had died of illness or natural causes. The truth was they killed at least 200,000 people with disabilities in gas chambers that were also used to kill other marginalised people including, overwhelmingly, Jewish people from across Europe. This truth is deeply moving and horrifying to me as a disabled person and as someone who has spent their working life trying to support people coping with long term illness and disability. It is also why the disabled community fight so hard and shout so loud about any rhetoric from government that denigrates or devalues people with disabilities in today’s society. It is why many disabled people breathed a sigh of relief at the recent change in government as many perceive Conservative austerity measures and rhetoric to have led to the deaths of 180,000 disabled people since 2006. So you can imagine why this subject really spoke to my heart and my values.

If this sounds a little heavy, it really isn’t. The author weaves these historical facts into the story beautifully so we see it through the eyes of one of these horrified parents. Many of whom tried different ways of keeping their child away from the T4 programme, especially those who were developing disabilities. In 1939, as the Nazi march on Paris began, Nora is still in the middle of her chef’s training. This dream she has been realising has come to an end as she realises she has to take a last chance to escape. She really has left it until the last train leaving Paris before enemy arrives. As she gathers her things to leave and says goodbye to Sabine, out of the blue her friend has a last request. Having only just given birth, Sabine knows she must leave Paris too and will be travelling away from the city with her husband. She suspects one of her twins may have a disability and has heard about the T4 programme. She knows what could await her daughter if she’s right. Although it will break her heart, she has to put her daughter’s life first and asks Nora if she will take the baby back to England with her. She knows Nora well enough to be satisfied that her little girl will be safe, loved and well cared for. Nora agrees and takes the heart-wrenching choice to say goodbye to one of her daughters. Iris lives away from home, but often visits her adoptive parents in the the little fishing village in Cornwall where she grew up. She has always known she was adopted, but whenever she asks questions about the circumstances surrounding her birth her parents avoid or shut down the discussion. It has left Iris unsure about her identity and that inner feeling she has that something is missing. I kept thinking about the bond that twins have and how not knowing your other half would affect Iris’s sense of self. I desperately wanted her to find the answers she was looking for, but could understand how Nora might worry about how she would take the truth. I could also empathise with Sabine who must be desperately worried about how her daughter feels and also feel a desperate sense of loss for all those moments she wasn’t there. Would Iris feel betrayed? Would she understand the dangers they believed she was facing under occupation?

This was a story about an evil and previously unimaginable situation, faced by two friends whose trust in each other was absolute even at their most terrified. Most readers would empathise with Sabine’s sacrifice, but I could also see the sacrifice that Nora made. She expected to finish her training in the culinary capital of Europe and become a chef, instead she sacrificed all that out of love for her friend and for a little girl who could perhaps be saved from the fate of so many others. As Iris visits her mother, this time, Nora hands over a box full of letters and mementos, and Iris slowly discovers the true story of her life. She must also face the cruelty of what happened to children with disabilities in those years before the Germans invaded Iris’s origin story is one of bravery and a mother’s desperation, with secrets in store. These young women come alive in this story of a deep commitment made from one mother to another. It’s evocative and moving, reminding those of us who have never been in this position that such young women were capable and willing to make decisions like this that were heart-wrenching and ultimately life-saving. It reminds us that duty, often seen as such a dry word, is sometimes an expression of love and hope for the future.

Out now from Storm Publishing

Meet the Author

Juliet Greenwood is the author of eight historical novels, published by Orion and Storm Publishing. She has been a finalist for The People’s Book Prize, and her books have been top 100 kindle bestsellers in the UK and USA.

She has long been inspired by the histories of the women in her family, and in particular with how strong-minded and independent women have overcome the limitations imposed on them by the constraints of their time, and the way generations of women hold families and communities together in times of crisis, including during WW2.

Juliet now lives in a traditional quarryman’s cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, set between the mountains and the sea, with an overgrown garden (good for insects!) and a surprisingly successful grapevine. She can be found dog walking in all weathers working on the plot for her next novel, camera to hand.

Posted in Netgalley

Our Holiday by Louise Candlish

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Pine Ridge is a small coastal village off the south coast, somewhere near Bournemouth and has that castaway feeling from the moment you cross on the car ferry. However, this idyllic village is the setting for discontent and divided loyalties between those DFL (down from London) residents and those who have grown up in Pine Ridge and mainly work servicing those August visitors. The ridge has a resort hotel, beach bar and spa to keep holiday makers happy, but some visitors have gone away dreaming of their own little slice of south coast heaven. One summer Pine Ridge becomes the centre of a dispute over second home ownership. This is a bad time for Amy and Linus who have just bought their own little bungalow with coastal views up on the ridge. It needs work, having been the home of an elderly couple, but she has a plan and builders starting this summer. She was inspired by friend Charlotte whose banker husband Perry used a huge bonus to buy their perfect holiday home with it’s own summer house overlooking the sea, nicknamed The Nook. It’s people like this that friends Robbie and Tate are angry about. They grew up here but are stuck living in static caravans on a temporary site because they can’t afford to buy or rent anywhere. The private rental market has shrunk as people refurb for the AirBnB market and no new houses are being built. People on service wages can’t hope to pay the prices of houses on the ridge, so they’re snapped up by Londoners who only come in August. This leaves huge homes empty all year while villagers are homeless, this is why the men have set up the NJFA – ‘Not Just For August’ Campaign. As tensions rise towards the August bank holiday, the NJFA are gearing up to make their final public protest of the summer. As the music festival gears up on the beach, people are interested in the design they’ve created on the sand, but they’re stopped in their tracks when half way through the day a summer house is bulldozed from the cliff and into the sea. Was this the NJFA plan all along or is something else going on?

Louise Candlish is brilliant at satirising the middle classes and she’s hit upon an issue that holiday destinations around the world are facing. I’ve always visited Venice in winter or early spring because I can’t stand cruise crowds and I was emotionally drawn in by the problem of keeping that balance between tourists and residents. They’ve addressed the cruise ship issue in recent years, have set up campaigns that show tourists which are the authentic Venetian restaurants and shops rather than the tourist traps. Authorities are now considering curbing numbers. Otherwise, it will become little more than a Disneyland experience; can Venice be the city it is, without it’s people? It’s a problem that areas like Devon and Cornwall have faced for years, with second home owners and holiday cottages turning whole villages into ghost towns in the winter. Even worse, it means the opinions of people who are not even year round residents, hold more sway in local matters than people trying to earn their livelihood. This came to the fore a few years ago in Cornwall where local fishermen’s need for a new jetty was being blocked by second home owners objecting to the planning application. There is always a tipping point and Candlish has demonstrated that exquisitely here. I had so much sympathy for Tate and his girlfriend Ellie, working in the beach bar and spa but not able to buy a home where they were born. They finished long shifts, only to broil all night in the heat of a static caravan. Tate’s friend Robbie is determined to take action and his NJFA campaign starts with throwing eggs and soup at DFL cars at the ferry stop. He pushes his agenda at council meetings and in the press, especially when he parks his caravan on the drive of a Pine Ridge home that’s been empty all year.

When we meet the DFL families their privilege is apparent. Candlish has this brilliant way of creating the stereotype we expect then subverting it. Perry is the archetypal banker – big car, egocentric and totally unapologetic about his banker’s bonus that allowed him to buy their holiday home and retire early. It’s easy to find fault with him; the drinking, the toxic masculinity and the absolute rejection of the type of ‘woke’ causes the younger people are hung up on. His son Benedict has brought girlfriend Tabitha to Pine Ridge, but she’s so ‘woke’ that she gets under Perry’s skin. Her sympathy for the NJFL cause grinds his gears, especially when she criticises his lifestyle while happy to enjoy the benefits for herself. Perry is simply incapable of keeping the peace, tearing up to the caravan park to give Robbie a piece of his mind and his fists. He’s also irritated by Linus, who is more aware of his impact on the world and travels everywhere in the village by bicycle. Perry finds his middle-aged Lycra wearing ridiculous and vents much of his rage on him and his bike. Yet there’s another side to Perry, a fear of being who he really is perhaps? He’s on the wagon after years of alcoholism and has formed an attachment to a resident at the halfway house for addicts where he volunteers in London. Charlotte is suspicious of his weekly drives back up to the city, but it’s fair to say doesn’t suspect the identity or gender of the object of his affections. It’s clear that Perry’s lies are starting to stack up and he won’t be able to hold his perfect life together for very long.

Another interesting character is Linus and Amy’s daughter Beatrice, who at 17 has blossomed into a goddess, something her mother realises when she sees her on the beach in a bikini. Beatrice could be an rich bitch, totally unaware of how privileged she is. Of course they’re not as well off as Perry and Charlotte, but still they can afford to renovate the bungalow as a second home and she has the usual teenage accoutrements of manicured nails, the latest iPhone and enough clothing to dress the whole family. Underneath Beatrice doesn’t seem happy though and when Charlotte notices a wrap she’s wearing on the beach is genuine designer and not the Vinted fake she claimed it was, her mind starts whirring. Where is Beattie getting the money for all these designer items? Candlish has all the right brands here including the designer collaboration Birkenstocks. It turns out that Beattie has a way of acquiring her goods that is less than savoury. I was expecting OnlyFans or an online sugar daddy! Yet what does Amy expect when she’s already going out of her way to keep up with Charlotte and Perry? It’s something that’s very apparent when she purchases her own summer house to sit overlooking the bay and christens it The Niche. Beattie has other secrets too, involving the The Niche and a certain beach barman. All hell will break loose if Linus finds out that this man, with a pregnant girlfriend, is hanging around his daughter. Tate is feeling ever more desperate and utterly trapped. He can’t bear the idea of the winter in the confines of their static with a screaming baby. He isn’t ready. While Ellie is planning to tell her parents and lobbying the council for more permanent housing, he is meeting his teenage lover and planning his escape.

There are so many strands to this story that by the time the summer house slides off the cliff and onto the beach I had no idea who had done it. The shockwaves ripple through the villagers when the police find a body in the wreckage and start a murder enquiry. Tate knows he and Robbie will be in the frame for their activist antics and their ability to use a bulldozer. I couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Despite their circumstances driving them to criminal behaviour, they really aren’t bad boys. My money was on one of the DFL crowd: had Charlotte found out about Perry’s extra-curricular activities? Was Beattie so scared of her secrets coming to light she’d silenced someone? Had Perry been driven to distraction by Linus and his bike? We didn’t even know whose summer house was wrecked at first. This labyrinth of possibilities slowly unravels, including some fascinating twists and turns. I loved how Candlish highlighted a very real injustice, while weaving a unputdownable thriller around it. I genuinely felt for locals having to sofa surf, while huge houses stood empty all year. To then add insult to injury they then have to earn their money servicing these families and their houses, providing their massages in the spa and listening while they complain about their busy lives and seeing how much they spend without thinking on their food and drink. I could see why they were angry and it was interesting to see how those inequalities lead to other ideologies – when locals find out that asylum seekers might be housed nearby they are incensed. Their antipathy comes from fear that someone will jump them in the queue, but they’re missing who the real enemy is. Everybody has to do a lot of learning as we rush towards her conclusion, there’s some learning around respecting differing opinions, understanding why the other person thinks like they do and finding ways of working together. This is a fabulously current morality tale with some delicious satire and lots of secrets to uncover. The perfect summer read.

Out Now in Hardback from HQ

Meet the Author

Hello and welcome! You join me as my new thriller OUR HOLIDAY is published – it is out now in paperback, ebook and audio and was just announced as a Richard & Judy Book Club pick for the summer! It features my favourite ever love-to-hate characters (wait till you meet Perry and Charlotte!), second home owners in an idyllic beach resort who think they’re in town for another summer of sun, sea and rosé… But instead, they’re in for a bit of a reckoning…

I’m also celebrating my 20th year as an author this summer – that’s right, my first book came out in 2004, which somehow manages to feel both like yesterday AND a hundred years ago. 

OUR HOUSE is the one you may know me for as it’s on our screens as a major four-part ITV drama starring Martin Compston, Tuppence Middleton and Rupert Penry-Jones (watch the full series free on ITVX). This is the novel that turned my career around – right when I was about to give up. It won the 2019 British Book Awards Book of the Year – Crime & Thriller and was shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, the Capital Crime Amazon Publishing Best Crime Novel of the Year Award​, and the Audible Sounds of Crime Award. It was also longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the Specsavers National Book Awards. 

It recently received a Nielsen Bestseller Silver Award for 250,000 copies sold and I feel so proud that readers are continuing to discover it and recommend it far and wide.

My 1990s-set thriller THE ONLY SUSPECT just won the 2024 Capital Crime Fingerprint Award for Thriller of the Year and I was recently nominated for a CWA Dagger in the Library Award, voted for by librarians and readers. 

OUR HOLIDAY, THE ONLY SUSPECT, THE OTHER PASSENGER, THE SWIMMING POOL and THE DAY YOU SAVED MY LIFE have all been optioned for the screen – I’ll share development news on those as soon as I can.

A bit about me: I live in a South London neighbourhood not unlike the one in my books, with my husband, daughter (when she’s not at uni), and a fox-red Labrador called Bertie who is the apple of my eye. Books, TV and long walks are my passions – and drinking wine in the sun with family and friends. My favourite authors include Tom Wolfe, Patricia Highsmith, Barbara Vine and Agatha Christie.

Be the first to hear about new releases and price drops by clicking on the ‘Follow’ button under my pic or: 

Website: louisecandlish dot com

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Author photos: ©Neil Spence; ©Johnny Ring; ©Joe Lord/Archant

From Louise’s Amazon Author Page.

Posted in Netgalley

The Phoenix Ballroom by Ruth Hogan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Venetia Hamilton-Hargreaves has just lost her husband Hawk and life is now going to be very different. Her son Heron and his wife are moving out to Paris for work and have decided that their son Kite will be attending his school as a boarder from now on. Hawk is worried about his mother and suggests that she employs a companion and home help. Liberty Bell is also grieving. Her mother has recently died after a short illness and a long-standing love affair has ended, but since her lover was also her married boss she has no job either. When she’s summoned to the solicitor she assumes it’s to deal with her mother’s will, but she’s shocked to find her mother’s wishes were not straightforward. She has left a photo album containing pictures of Liberty at different points in her life, alongside a cryptic message. She must commit to meeting with the solicitor every few weeks and when he is sure Liberty has met her mother’s expectations she will receive her inheritance. Yet with no idea of what those expectations are, how can Liberty succeed? Also, having moved in to look after her mother, she has now lost the roof over her head. She applies for the job with Venetia because it is a live-in position but isn’t sure that this vibrant and lively 74 year old actually needs help. Crow has been living in a hostel for some time, but struggles to deal with the chaos and noise. In the evenings he lets himself into a building that houses a spiritualist church and drop-in centre downstairs and an old ballroom upstairs. When the building is put up for sale he worries he may lose his sanctuary, not to mention all the people who receive help and support from the lady called Evangeline downstairs. When Venetia finds out that the old ballroom where she taught dance as a young woman is being sold for luxury flats she decides to take a look. So many of her memories are bound up in this place. It’s where she fell in love, with dance and with a very special man. She met her husband Hawk here and she can see the good work being done downstairs. She decides with the help of assistant Liberty that she will buy the building and restore the ballroom to its former glory, uncovering many secrets and changing lives along the way.

Ruth Hogan’s books are always whimsical, entertaining and uplifting so this book has been the perfect choice while battling COVID. She always creates fascinating and eccentric female characters who are going through a journey of personal growth. Here there was a very specific theme and a rather inspiring one, especially while feeling very unwell. This book was about what fear does to a person, whether that’s fear from a specific event or a long-standing fear of failure. Something I have learned the older I get is that you only fail if you stop trying. Liberty starts the book as quite a cautious person who is thrown totally out of her comfort zone. The job with Venetia gives her a roof over her head, but Venetia’s trust in her abilities really boosts her confidence. Soon she is helping with Kite, making lists for the renovation of the ballroom and supervising the work. However, I believe it is friendship that also makes the difference to Liberty. When Venetia’s eccentric sister-in-law Swan appears at the house Liberty finds her frankness and eccentricity a little startling, but they are soon a regular twosome with Swan even accompanying Liberty to her baffling meetings with the solicitor. I was hoping that some of Swan’s haughty and direct manner would rub off on Liberty and was rewarded with a startling display of assertiveness when Heron appears at the house. I also wanted some of Swan’s colour to inspire Liberty, giving her the courage to stand out and take up space. Venetia is less transparent and there were a few mysteries around her past life that I couldn’t work out. She’d clearly been an accomplished ballroom dancer until meeting her husband Hawk, but there was no real explanation for why she’d given it all up. She was a teacher as well as a competitor and Hawk didn’t seem to be the sort of man who would have insisted on her giving up something she loved. They were also incredibly different people and I didn’t feel that their relationship had been a lightning bolt of passion. There were little hints of a event in the past that changed Venetia and not just emotionally.

I thoroughly enjoyed untangling all these stories, including that of Crow, the homeless man who rescues Kite from bullies and spends his evenings in the quiet of the attic at the church. He’s mysterious and although he’s technically breaking and entering I didn’t get the feeling he was a bad guy, just in dire circumstances. I was interested to see where he would fit in to this group of characters who were very slowly becoming like family. Similarly, Venetia’s son Heron seems pompous and irritating but I sensed good intentions below the surface. He just needed some of these strong women to put him in his place and explain that his mother isn’t in her dotage. I was also fascinated with the mystery of two unknown men who’d appeared at Hawk’s funeral, along with the hidden book with a cryptic inscription. This was a beautiful side story that brought home the main theme of the book – we regret the things we haven’t done more than those we have. This is the sort of book that is perfect for summer holiday reading and which certainly cheered me up as I was stuck in bed with COVID.

Out Now From Corvus

Meet the Author

Ruth Hogan studied English and Drama at Goldsmiths College and went on to work in local government. A car accident and a subsequent run-in with cancer convinced her finally to get her act together and pursue her dream of becoming a writer. The result was her debut novel – The Keeper of Lost Things. She is now living the dream (and occasional nightmare) as a full-time author living with her husband and rescue dogs in a rambling Victorian house stuffed with treasure that inspires her novels. 

Instagram: @ruthmariehogan

Posted in Squad Pod

For Such A Time As This by Shani Akilah

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I don’t often read short stories, because I’ve always got a novel on the go. So if I read them it’s usually in the same way I read poetry – keep them by the bed for when pain and insomnia hit and I want something short, that won’t have me tempted by one more page late at night. Or I carry them in my handbag for when I’m in a waiting room or on the train. I haven’t read a collection in one go since university when my American Fictions module introduced me to Katherine Mansfield, Zelda Fitzgerald and of course, Virginia Woolf. I’m so glad I read this collection in one go, because they are interrelated, but also because each story is like a jigsaw puzzle piece that once put together gives a picture of the lives lived by a group of young Black British Londoners.

Akilah’s writing is immediate: there are small visual chunks of description like Insta posts; short snappy dialogue like Tweets; never a character or a word too much. Yet they’re also incredibly romantic, something I didn’t expect from the Tinder generation. The opening introduction of a girl catching sight of a man on the Tube reading her favourite book is so lovely. She has a yearning to talk to him, but as she plucks up the courage to approach him she’s interrupted by a woman who notices she’s dropped her new bookmark. She’s intrigued by a man who chooses to read fiction and wonders what insights he might have. It’s a tiny moment of connection in an otherwise dislocated existence. Other passengers stay in their own bubble, either keeping their head down studying their phone or cut off by their AirPods. Some just have their eyes closed. There’s something almost intrusive about having to share space with others at this time in the morning, anything that creates some distance will do. I felt the chaos of the city in this opener, probably more pronounced because I’m 50 years old and live in a northern rural village that still has a little red phone box. I can opt out of the world whenever I want and I really felt that gap while reading – these young people have to live in this reality. It took me into a generation for whom life is lived in snippets of information whether it be a tweet, a WhatsApp or SnapChat message. Somehow they flit between them and keep it all in their head. As our narrator says, she can swap between iMessage and work mode with ease knowing that eventually her year will be all parcelled up in a Spotify playlist.

My heart broke for Gabby, in Good, Goodbye. At the age where everyone is getting married she’s always the bridesmaid – six times this year. She’s so obviously single that aunties commiserate with ‘your huzband is coming’. Obviously from the same friend circle, Jonathon is the resident clown, up for dancing, singing and even last minute MC’s duties. He played hard that summer and took so many photos for his Twitter Wedding Enjoyment posts. Yet he freezes at today’s wedding when he sees Gabby looking ‘like a goddess’. Gabby is the one who walked away from him five years ago. She felt like she wasted so much time on him and finally met up with him and drew a definite line under their ‘on again, off again’ relationship. I loved Gabby’s thoughts on the Maya Angelou quote about believing who people are the first time they show you. It’s a quote I kept in my mind in my younger, dating years, but a hard lesson to learn. Yet we also hear Jonathon’s thoughts – that Gabby was the one person who understood him and that actually he knows now she was the making of him. There’s such a gulf between what this young man says and what he deeply feels. He’s hiding behind polite conversation but inside remembers a wedding from years before, when her sister got married and he realised Gabby was the one. I yearned throughout this beautifully romantic story for one of them to tell the truth about their feelings.

We see more of Jonathon in a story called Ghana in December and we see the struggle of being split between London and the place that feels like home. The young men in the story are missing the food and the sun. He thinks about the expectations placed upon him as a young black man, especially once his father’s mental health declined, something he’s always kept to himself. He had to step up at home, be the man of the house and felt so much guilt for wanting to go to university. He tells his friend David that the London life ‘kills us in so many ways’. David gets it. It’s the micro-aggressions that chip away. Jokes passed off as banter. The hostility he felt from white and Caribbean kids. How he was talked down to as if all Africans are primitive and come from mud huts. He could never speak of his brother’s suicide and how returning to Accra brings out that grief. When he smells the food and sees the difference in the light he somehow feels united with him. It’s the place he needs to be in order to feel and allow himself to cry on a friend. I loved how the author shows the depths of these young men’s feelings and how they cope with this split identity. I really came up against my own privilege as the author wove the pandemic into her stories. There was so much able-bodied people took for granted in that period of time, my disability meant I had to shield for a year and become isolated from everyone. Yet black people were four times more likely to die from COVID than white and one story character is keen to set up a work support group for the 33% of employees who are black. She talks about the proportion of black and ethnicity minority people who work on the front line, the financial straits of the pandemic, the higher infection rates and she spends her spare time educating the employer about the disproportionate effect on black employees. Yet afterwards, when she’s encouraged to apply for a senior equalities post it goes to a white man. I could feel her powerlessness and the injustice of this decision. Our character doesn’t want to believe she’s facing racism and I’ve heard excuses made for these types of choices – it’s happened to me and I didn’t want to call it ableist in my younger years, but now I would. It’s a case of calling something what it is. Not letting yourself be gaslit about it.

My joy was unbounded when Gabby and Jonathon appear in the final story, set around a party. I had everything crossed for them, yet the author had other surprise reunions that I hadn’t expected. The stories that follow the pandemic have captured that sense of change. The reminder that we need to wear ‘proper clothes’ again made me smile because I’ve been aware of a big change in my wardrobe towards outfits that are really secret pyjamas. There’s nothing formal anymore, no high heels and certainly no work wear. There’s the strangeness of being with others, whilst knowing more social interaction is probably good for me. The author drops in these little clues and reminders of other places: the kente cloth bookmark; Ghana casually described as ‘home’; music used as a reminder of wider family and celebration. The references ground these stories within the community, the African diaspora in London. Not everything ends how we expect, but that just heightens the sense of realism and authenticity. This is a warm, inviting and illuminating collection that shows the pressures on young, Black British people. It was a different world from my own, a busy, urban city full of these sparky characters whose ambitions and dreams are so admirable, even if they are also tough on the character trying to achieve them. It shows how having your community and friends around you is vital, even if some of their expectations are grounded in a different time and place. Finally, it struck me how important it is to tap back into that home country through family, food, music or traditions because it’s something that keeps them grounded and replenished.

Out now from Magpie Publishing

Meet the Author

Shani Akilah is a Black-British Caribbean writer and screenwriter from South London. She is a book influencer, co-founder of the Nyah Network, a book club for Black women, and was a literary judge for the Nota Bene Prize 2023. Shani has a Masters degree in African Studies from Oxford University. For Such A Time As This is her debut short-story collection. 

Thank you to the author, Magpie publishing and The Squad POD Collective for my copy of this collection.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Divorce by Moa Herngren

Posted on by thelotusreaders

There are two sides to every story…

This is one of those books that needs to be discussed. A perfect book club choice or book you can foist onto a friend because you will want to discuss it. As the cover suggests this is a marriage and a book that splits into two – one of life’s seismic fault lines that has a very definite before and after. Niklas and Bea have been married for over thirty years with two teenage daughters Alexia and Alma. They have what most people would consider the perfect life. They live in a beautiful and sought after area of Stockholm in an apartment that Bea has spent so much time perfecting. They are currently remodelling the kitchen, but it’s bespoke and at huge cost. Niklas is a doctor and has recently taking a job heading up a maternity department. Historically, Bea stayed home with the girls and more recently took a job with the Red Cross. It doesn’t pay a lot but with Niklas’s new wage they don’t need to worry about it. As we meet the family they are preparing to take their annual summer holiday to Holgreps and the home of Niklas’s parents. They go every year at the same time as his brother Henke because this is the only time the cousins get to be together. Niklas has forgotten to book the ferry tickets and Bea is furious. This means spending an extra week in the sweltering heat of the city with no outside space or a long drive to a different ferry crossing. He only has to do one thing, she does everything else and he’s so wrapped up in his new job he can’t do it.

“Bea is busy emptying the dishwasher in the kitchen, but she stops as he comes in. The look on her face is demanding […] Her jaw seems tense, and he can see her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath her blouse. She is disappointed. No, disappointed probably isn’t the right word. She’s angry. Furious. How the hell could you forget to pay the bill? This means we can’t go to Gotland tomorrow, the tickets are all sold out!”

“Niklas feels like shouting back at her, telling her there are worse things. Like being a single mother who has just found out that her newborn son has Down’s syndrome, for example. Or being the man on the ICU ward, watching over his wife as his stillborn daughter is taken down to a cold storage unit two floors below. He feels like roaring that his head is so full there isn’t room for the damn ferry tickets and all the terrible, exhausting planning she has apparently had to do. Niklas wants to shout, but instead he turns and walks away while she is mid-sentence. He can hear Bea’s agitated voice behind him, but to his surprise, he just keeps on walking […] Each step is a relief.”

Bea narrates the first part of the book and we get the sense she feels badly done too. Niklas wouldn’t be where he is without her and she has made sure he lives up to his potential. She talked him into accepting the new job because left to his own devices he would still be pottering along in his paediatrician role at the small local hospital. It’s the same with the apartment, he couldn’t see the problem with the existing kitchen. He’d have made do with it for years, never thinking about what the room could be. Bea looks forward to Hogreps every year, she never really had much of a family herself especially after her brother Jacob died. In the aftermath Niklas had taken her to stay with his parents and on her first mornings there, his mother Lillias took Bea wild swimming. She credits those mornings with saving her sanity, more effective than counselling. Niklas had been Jacob’s friend so they shared their grief and it brought them together. Bea has always thought that anything they do together becomes fun, even if it’s taking items to the recycling tip. So it comes as a huge surprise to her when Niklas sends her a text message to say he isn’t coming home. There’s no further explanation and she doesn’t know if he means he isn’t coming home that afternoon, till tomorrow or at all. Bea’s texts and voicemails are ignored so she tells him that their daughter was expecting him to take her out in the car and she’s upset. She’s still ignored and infuriatingly, when she checks in with their daughter Alma says it’s okay. Her dad has called her and said he’ll take her another time. As one night seems to be extending, Bea is beside herself. Niklas says he wants space, but what from and how long for? Where is he staying? She’s going through that strange feeling that the person you shared space with; the person you could touch whenever you wanted; the person who you spoke to several times a day, is now off limits. It was clear to me that the balance of power had shifted in this relationship but I couldn’t understand why.

“Bea picks up her phone again, staring at the screen as though she an coax Niklas into sending her another message. An explanation of why he is acting so oddly […] but the only messages in their chat thread are Bea’s own attempts to reach him. A long string of questions and exclamation marks. CAPS. Angry emojis. Furious red faces with slanting eyebrows and bubbling volcano heads. Demands for communication”.

“The condescending pat on the head, talking to him as though his choices are reprehensible. As though it’s him who is in the wrong, who is unhinged, when all he is trying to do is be true to himself. The clear subtext is that his feelings don’t matter, and nor do his choices or wishes.”

Halfway through the novel, as Bea sets off with her girls to Hogreps and their stay with the in-laws, Niklas takes over the narration. I’d got used to my narrator at this point and I was feeling some empathy with Bea who is clearly distraught. Yet now I started to hear her husband’s story and his inner world: the pressure he’s under at work; the diagnosis he feels he should have made that changed someone’s outcome; the responsibility of financially supporting his family and keeping up with Bea’s remodelling ambitions. He’s on the proverbial hamster wheel and feels totally trapped. The author puts across his tension and despair so beautifully and I could feel the panic in his mind. I started to feel that Bea’s needs were seen as more important than his, not just in the marriage but with his family too. This is a problem rooted in the way they became a couple, both were grieving for Bea’s brother Jacob but she had the claim of being his sister. He took her to his family as this lonely, wounded little bird and they all took her under their wing. Niklas was effectively pushed to one side, not only negating his grief for his best friend but piling on the pressure. He now feels held to account, forced to swallow his own needs and look after Bea at all costs. It isn’t until he ends up talking to one of their neighbours at a party that he even realises he has a choice. The sense of freedom he gets from someone listening to him is exhilarating. Everyone assumes he’s having a midlife crisis, but is he? As he and Bea go to couple’s therapy can they save their marriage?

‘She knows exactly what song Lillis means. ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ by Sting. Bea herself has never even a fan. Surely freedom also involves responsibility? Taking responsibility for those you love? She doesn’t have a problem with giving other people space, but leaving your partner in the lurch? That’s just cowardly.”

“She has liberated his mind somehow. Lifted the hundred-kilo weight from his chest. Sometimes he wonders what might have happened if they’d met earlier. Would he have been able to avoid all this? Would he have forgiven himself sooner? Realised that he isn’t responsible for other people – other than his children, of course – or at least not in a way that makes him a slave.”

I loved how the author shows us the difference in communication styles between these two characters. Bea is performative and you are never in doubt about how she’s feeling. He anger and distress leap out immediately, even all the way back to the beginning and Jacob’s death. Niklas seems shell-shocked by Jacob’s death and he internalises all of the feelings he has to look after Bea. However, it starts to become clear there are bigger things hidden deep inside this couple than tears. Grief is complicated and Niklas’s feelings have been discounted from the beginning, by his parents Lillis and Tores, by Bea and by himself. He hasn’t allowed himself to process what happened and this becomes his coping style. So, when he finally does start to express his feelings they come as a surprise to Bea and to him. He can’t blame her for not knowing how he’s felt, because he’s never tried to tell her. Or is it more that there’s never been room for anything but Bea’s feelings. As we go back and forth, especially section three which passes between the two of them, secrets come to surface that I really didn’t expect. It’s also interesting to see how the people around the couple adjust and cope with what’s going on, brought into sharp focus by the illness of Tores. I felt so much for Bea because she has a lot of catching up to do, it’s as if the world has moved on without out her suddenly. Then in Niklas’s sections of the story I could feel how free he is, exploring his likes and dislikes, changing long held traditions and doing things he never expected like having a tattoo. They might look like mistakes from the outside, but it’s his exploration and he’s finally finding his authentic self. This novel is so beautifully written and exquisitely structured to have impact on the reader. Reading this felt like a counselling session and I mean that in the best way possible. We delve deeply into these two characters and their shared history, looking for clues and patterns of behaviour till we can understand why they’ve reached this crisis point. The question of whether they can come together again and be a family I will leave you to find out.

“Maybe things are different for Bea and Niklas because their life together began in tragedy, with Jacob’s death. Because that, strangely enough, is what brought them together. Maybe that’s why she knows they can handle anything: because they fell in love at rock bottom. She wouldn’t have survived without Niklas”.

Out Now in hardback from Manila Press

Meet the Author

Moa Herngren is a journalist, former editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine and a highly sought-after manuscript writer. She is also the co-creator and writer on Netflix hit- show Bonus Family.
Alice Menzies is a freelance translator based in London. Her translations include work by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Fredrik Backman, Tove Alsterdal and Jens Liljestrand.

Posted in Netgalley

Things Don’t Break On Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

It seems to be a year of incredible debuts and this one is definitely going to stay with me. We open at a dinner party. Robyn and her wife Cat are hosting an evening for their friends Willa and Jamie, Robyn’s brother Michael and his partner Liv, and Cat’s brother Nat and his new girlfriend Claudette. It’s the first time the group will meet Claudette and Robyn hopes to make it a chilled, relaxed evening. Robyn and Michael grew up in a rambling and ramshackle farm house in the south west of the UK. Their father Chris was a potter and it was a bohemian, relaxed place to grow up. Robyn had a scholarship for a private girl’s school and she ‘buddies’ with Willa who was a new sixth former. They shared a study bedroom and Robyn soon learns that Willa’s life is overshadowed by the disappearance of her sister Laika. Her boyfriend Jamie is a wine merchant who lived in South Africa and his confidence can become overbearing. Michael’s girlfriend Liv is a psychologist and she begins a discussion about implicit and explicit memories. Our explicit memories include times, dates and places and they tend to be formed by older children. Implicit memories are usually from unconscious emotional recollections and can be an amalgamation of several memories, as well as a few bits of what others have told us. These are memories created when we’re very small, usually pre-school age. Jamie isn’t convinced and Liv’s assertions seem to unsettle the party. As Jamie gets louder, Willa tells a memory of being tickled until she wets herself. She has always hated being tickled. However, someone in the party knows this isn’t actually Willa’s memory. It’s her sister Laika’s.

One of Willa’s other memories is that her sister called their dad’s personal assistant his ‘sexetary’ but doesn’t know why. This shows us that we only ever know part of the bigger picture. The author uses several narrators to show us that we can be present at the same event but see it totally differently. Laika had a memory of knocking over a tiered cake full of sugar flowers. In fact she’d stepped into the pantry to pick off the flowers and let them melt on her tongue. Then her dad and his secretary stepped into the cupboard and start to fool around. Laika is horrified and tries to get out, but then her dad notices her and is furious. He grabs her arm and yanks her out from under the shelf with so much force there’s an audible snap as he breaks her arm. Laika is screaming from pain but also because her dad is naked from the waist down. When her mother appears she’s confused by his explanation that her arm just broke; ‘things don’t break on their own’ she replies. Willa is a witness to her father’s abuse of Laika and her mother, but she is his ‘PP’, short for prized possession. I hated this sense of ownership. In her own narrative Laika talks about feeling rage and there were places where I really felt it. On one occasion, when Laika has tried to trim her own fringe, her father pins her down and hacks her hair off with the scissors. The sense of powerlessness that comes across in this scene made me feel physically sick. At a family gathering Laika finds a baby bird and takes it to her parents for advice, but her aunt snatches it from her and throws it into the waiting jaws of her dogs. Willa submits and doesn’t provoke her father, but Laika won’t and this makes his treatment of her even worse. Willa doesn’t even realise they’ve spent their childhood utterly controlled, because she’s never been anywhere else. She thinks all families are the same until she stays with Robyn’s parents in the school holidays. Their easy way of being, the gentle nurturing love and the emphasis on people not things is a revelation to Willa. By contrast her home is a sterile mausoleum to her father’s achievements with pictures of him with important people and shelves of prized Chinese ceramics without a speck of dust.

Another theme in the book is that of kintsugi, a Japanese practice of putting broken pottery back together with glue mixed with liquid gold. The broken pot becomes more beautiful because of it’s cracks. Robyn’s family is like this. They each show each other their broken parts and that familial love, acceptance and non-judgemental compassion is the glue that makes a person whole. By contrast, Willa’s father’s ceramics are distant and pristine, not to be handled. They have the same brittle beautiful exterior he expects from the women in his family, because their behaviour reflects on him. When we move into Laika’s narrative, we see another show of love and what it can do for someone who’s never had it. As she leaves home that morning she hides at a house she’s often seen in passing. It stands alone and is the home of an elderly lady who has many cats. She plans to sneak in and stay just one night to think about her next steps, but ends up staying for a while. The lady, Frieda, has nobody. There’s a carer who’s supposed to stay till lunchtime but only stays half an hour. Laika feeds Frieda properly, cares for her and she also listens. Frieda’s last living relatives are avaricious and only come round to see if they can find the family jewellery. Frieda knows what it is to powerless at the hands of a tyrant. As a German Jew she had to escape to the UK during WW2, but her sister didn’t make it. She knows that people only leave their friends and family if they’re desperate.

At school Willa needed the closeness of another person and enjoyed the physical comfort of sleeping next to Robyn. This blossomed into a relationship. For Robyn this was first love and their break-up just before exams was hard for her. She didn’t get the grades she’d wanted for medicine so instead she studied radiography. As an adult, Robyn has found Cat, a woman she knows she can build a life with and maybe become parents. Willa comes back into her life fifteen years later and has made a website about her sister Laika where people can post any sightings and Willa can write to her. When someone claims to have seen her she comes to Robyn for support and they fly to Thailand at a moment’s notice, much to Cat’s surprise. Cat wants a commitment and not to be second best. So she makes a choice to keep Willa as a friend, but to put Cat and their family first. When the couple visit Willa’s home it’s like an out of body experience. Crammed into a tiny flat in London, the couple are overwhelmed by the scale of the house. The wealth on display is slightly shocking, but the women, including Willa’s mother, have a great time. They read by the pool, visit local landmarks and cruise around in their convertible with George Michael on full blast. When her dad appears unexpectedly, Cat and Robyn look on open mouthed as Willa and her mother run to get changed into flowery dresses and start to wait on his every whim. They have become Stepford wives. We realise that Willa has always conformed, whereas Laika disrupted the picture perfect family. After her visit to Robyn, Willa tries to push her father a little but it takes Frank Zappa at full volume to really get under his skin. It’s clear at the dinner party that Jamie is Willa repeating a pattern. He’s so like her father and the pair get on well, with Willa’s weekends filled with visits home so they can play golf together. In fact Jamie spends more time with her father than he does with Willa. They share so many attributes and behaviours: the drinking and womanising, long trips abroad, strident right wing views, lack of empathy and he breaks things. In fact it’s his assertion ‘it just broke’ that wakes Willa up and makes her realise this is not normal.

The psychological dynamics of the dinner party are explained by the narratives from Robyn, Willa and Laika. This is a thriller, finding out what happened to Laika, complex in its psychology and often philosophical too within it’s twisty thriller structure. We each carry hidden histories within us, some aspects of which are subconscious. There are parts of that history that give us strength and resilience, others that give us an outlook of loving life, and others that help us fulfil our potential. Other parts of our history can unravel us. In counselling there’s a brick wall analogy. Something happens to us that we don’t process or resolve, so it sits there like a faulty brick. We continue to build our wall, but because of that dodgy brick the wall isn’t stable, it wobbles and might even collapse. In order to rebuild a strong wall, we must use the counselling process to slowly take away each brick until we reach the one that’s faulty. Then we remove it and replace it with a much healthier brick that comes from talking therapy, helping the client process trauma so their new wall stands the test of time. I loved the analogy of the natural pool where Robin’s parents take everyone to bathe. It’s a direct contrast to the sterile and man made pool at Willa’s home, that her mother turns into a rose garden. By contrast the natural pool at Robyn’s family home is filled with this self-made family that includes their friends too. Robyn and Michael’s family have so much love that it can easily take in others, old friends and new generations. Their love is like the natural spring that feeds the pool, constantly flowing and endlessly replaced.

‘I think about my duties and obligations […] as a decent human being. The things I have always known and understood , the things I’m prepared to stand up for, put my name to, hold myself accountable for. I think about my beautiful parents and how their love has helped me grow into the person I am.’

Meet the Author


Sarah Easter Collins grew up in Kent and studied at Exeter University before moving to Botswana and later Thailand and Malawi. A mother to a wonderful son, she now lives on Exmoor with her husband and two dogs. She is a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing course and holds a diploma in creative writing from Oxford University. When not writing, she works as an artist.

Posted in Publisher Proof

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkiss

Posted on by thelotusreaders

What a year it’s been for debuts!! This is another excellent read that I’d put on the back burner because I had over committed myself to blog tours. I’m so sorry I didn’t read it sooner because I absolutely LOVED it. This is my absolute favourite genre – gothic, historic fiction – but when added to the elements of spiritualism, transgressive females and dysfunctional families this would definitely come up on Goodreads as highly recommended. In Paris, 1866, a couple of sisters are living very separate lives; Sylvia who is now Baroness Devereaux and Charlotte Mothe, the sister she left behind with a drunken, violent father. When Charlotte pays a heavily disguised visit to Sylvie’s home she assumes their father is ill, but it’s a different aspect of her past she’s bringing to her sister’s door. Their mother had a business as a spirit medium, but Sylvie promised to put such shady dealings in the past when she married the Baron. Charlotte needs her sister for one last con, to pay her father’s medical bills. The aristocratic de Jacquinot family think they are being haunted by an aunt killed in the revolution. They will need to use all their tricks to frighten money out of this family, but they didn’t bank on being absolutely terrified too.

The Perrault fairy tale underpinning this story is ‘The Fairies’ but the sisters don’t necessarily agree on the interpretation. One sister is asked a favour by an old crone, a glass of water from the well, but she ignores her and is cursed to expel toads every time he opens his mouth. On the next day the other sister is commanded to provide a glass of water by a young beautiful woman and grants her the favour. The second sister opens her mouth and gold coins spill out. Perrault says one sister is good and one is bad and Sylvie accepts this, but Charlotte thinks changing her disguise was a mean trick.

“The test is rigged from the start – even before the fairy turned up, when Perrault labelled one sister good and one bad on the very first page, before either got a chance.”

However, by the end Sylvie has changed her perspective. She muses that if she had a daughter would she be toads or gold? She decides not to read her Perrault; ‘I think I will let her decide for herself how a girl should be.”

The de Jacquinot family are dysfunctional and have narrowed all their problems down to the daughter, Josephine. They are clearly struggling to stay afloat, with clear spaces on the wall where there used to be paintings. Yet none of them are working or making any money, still living like the aristocrats they once were. The grandfather seems grumpy but is convinced they have a visiting spectre – Aunt Sabine who died in the revolution when her throat was cut. Brother Maximilien is cynical, in his book there is no such thing as spirits and his sister is suffering from a prolonged bout of lunacy brought on by a dalliance with a once trusted friend of his. Josephine is absolutely convinced there’s a spirit. Charlotte and Sylvie started their routine and I’d not expected them to be charlatans! I loved the details of their routine – the snuffing out of candles, the ring of salt. I thought that the story of creating waxed spectral hands with their mother was a brilliantly quirky childhood memory! Charlotte adopts the patter again straight away, talking about “penumbral disturbances” and “liminal spaces”. Sylvie almost admires her sister as she weaves a tale around the de Jacquinot home and their errant daughter.

However, everyone is shocked when Sabine appears to possess her niece. Josephine has become a different person, babbling about something being taken from her and spitting with anger at her grandfather. Then she’s overcome, with ectoplasm pouring from her mouth. This is something they’ve heard of but have never seen spontaneously like this. That night the library walls are trashed and the ancestral paintings are slashed to pieces, all expect Sabine’s. The family suspect a poltergeist but how could they have slept through such destruction? After this even Maximilien is on board, yet Sylvie suspects something isn’t what it seems. Charlotte was vociferous in her defence of Josephine, almost as if she actually cares. Sylvie knows that her sister has become unnaturally attached to young women before. Before they can go any further Sylvie’s husband confronts her at home. He’s had her followed and suspects an affair with Maximilien de Jacquinot who is closer to Sylvie in age. Sylvie tries to protest her innocence, but it’s difficult when she has betrayed her husband, just in a different way. She can’t reason with him and can only do what he asks, to leave. Now she is back in her miserable childhood home, listening to her father snoring as she lays awake and bereft.

Here the author pulls a brilliant ‘Fingersmith’ style twist, with a change of narrator and perspective of the same events. This narrative is what happens to the girl who spews toads and doesn’t conform. Charlotte is the daughter who stayed behind and still nurses the father who she suspects of killing her mother. In Charlotte’s story, instead of the aristocracy we meet an interesting set of characters who live and love outside the norms of society. I loved meeting Mimi who could fill a book of his own! The atmosphere and settings in the book are brilliant and give a very varied look at the city of Paris, from the poverty Sylvie and Charlotte come from to the remaining aristocrats and their crumbling mansions. This is a society recovering from the shock of revolution and a shift in the existing hierarchy. The de Jacquinot family are like their mansion, falling apart. I loved the dual staircase too, with Josephine and Charlotte using the servant’s exit together when surely they should use the main stairs? There’s are further tantalising hints of people who live outside the rules, quite lavishly if Mimi’s quarters are the example. I could see why Sylvie had opted to disappear into the money classes, because the difference between her rooms and the home she came from is stark. She also truly loves her husband and hasn’t married him for a comfortable life as her sister thinks. Charlotte does feel the dice was loaded when it came to their differing fortunes and I think she sees the Perrault fairy tale as an allegory for her sexuality. Sylvie is able to conform in this way and Charlotte can’t, she’s born the way she is into a world that doesn’t accept her. I was also sympathetic to her situation at home, trying to care for a man who is hard to love and has been violent towards them all. This was an amazing read, genuinely spooky but also a novel about families. Those who fit into their family and those who don’t. This is a fabulous ghost story with an unexpected twist and a wonderful glimpse of a society in flux.

Meet the Author


Carmella Lowkis grew up in Wiltshire and has a degree in English literature and Creative Writing from the University of Warwick. After graduating, she worked in libraries, before moving into book marketing. Carmella lives in North London with her girlfriend. You can follow her on social media @carmellalowkis. Spitting Gold is her first novel.

Posted in Netgalley

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I started this book in bed at night, which turned out to be a big mistake because I didn’t want to go to sleep once I’d started. There was a lot of yawning the next day. We’re introduced to the village of Tome (pronounced ‘tomb’ by the locals just to add a sense of foreboding) and the new wellness retreat created there by Francesca Woodland who inherited The Manor and it’s land from her grandfather. Her husband Owen is the architect on the project and has created woodland ‘hutches’ for guests, featuring outdoor showers and luxurious linens. The Manor itself is the central hub where there are classes in meditation and yoga, with a spa that has reiki alongside all the usual treatments. The opening weekend looms and while there’s a hint of anxiety around the late building of the tree houses, Fran is sure she has everything under control. On the final night of the stay she has planned a mini-festival with live music, a meal out in the woods and strange wooden sculptures. Every guest must wear a crown fashioned from twigs creating the look and feel of a pagan celebration. While the music is at it’s loudest she has given Owen the go ahead to start digging the foundations for the tree houses, in the hope the music drowns out the noise. However, that’s not the only problem on the horizon. In order to build the houses, they must take down some of the ancient trees and when Owen arrives the workmen are confused by the new symbols on their bark. They look like seagulls in flight. By the morning there’s a burned effigy and a body on the beach, a wrecked Aston Martin with blood inside and the manor hiss been rased to the ground by a ferocious fire. There’s also an elderly fisherman rambling on about seeing giant birds. It looks like the midnight feast was a rather Bacchanalian event, with discarded drink bottles, feathers and clothes littering the ground, but something went badly awry. Everyone in Tome knows the local saying- ‘Don’t disturb the birds’. Could Francesca’s dream be over when it had only just begun?

The book starts with the aftermath of the festivities, but there are two more timelines: fifteen-twenty years ago when Francesca was a teenager living at the manor with her grandparents and twin brothers and the beginning of the weekend leading up to the feast twenty-four hours later. This multi-layered effect is multiplied with several narrators – Bella who is befriended by a young Francesca and later becomes a mystery guest at The Manor’s opening weekend; Owen who is Francesca’s husband but also hides a secret past; a young man called Eddie who is the retreat’s kitchen help and Francesca, the founder. It seemed like a lot of perspectives and timelines at first but the author is very skilled at creating distinctive characters so I soon got to know them and I didn’t feel lost. Francesca radiates a sense of calm and purity. However, like many people who put up a facade like this, it’s only so long before they blow and I was waiting for that moment. Bella is very secretive, realising she isn’t The Manor’s target demographic she’s worried she might stand out. Owen is very successful architect, wealthy and absolutely in love with Francesca, but seems to know a lot about local folklore and knows his way to a secret beach. Eddie, who I was rather fond of, lives in the shadow of his older brother who went missing years ago after becoming an addict. He lives at home with his parents on the family farm and feels his father’s despair that the son who loved working the farm is gone. Eddie wants something different, but given his parent’s disapproval of the retreat, he hides his job there while hoping to work up the organisation. Finally there’s the DI on the case, who is trying to piece together the night before and recovering a body from the beach, while the only witness to the death is the elderly man who still blaming giant birds.

There’s a sinister ‘them and us’ feel to this novel, a distinction that’s in one way about class and in another way about belonging. Locals are different from tourists and even though Francesca is local because she comes from the big house she can’t be one of them. Bella’s mother scolds her for spending her summer up at the manor and wishes she would make more friends from the village. Those at the big house don’t understand the village ways. When Bella bumps into a good-looking surfer down on the secret beach there’s an instant attraction, but when she takes him to the manor Francesca and her brothers tease him as if he’s a yokel. Bella starts to wonder where she fits in at all. There are those who have transcended where they came from, but the transformation was painful and has left it’s scars. I could sense a lot of references, such as The Wicker Man and Midsommer where a seemingly pastoral and innocent celebration slowly builds towards violence. The note left for Francesca, the marked trees and the chicken nailed to her door could have been someone disgruntled with the retreat, but it felt more personal. Francesca struck me as a powder keg. When younger, she appears to have very little empathy, especially for those she views as beneath her. Her brothers have a similar outlook, convinced they can do whatever they like to the locals and it will be swept up by the family as if it never happened. Francesca was like a cat playing with a mouse and the pleasure she got from hurting others gave the impression of a psychopath in the making. Then at the opening weekend, the local kids make their protest felt by pelting the pool with stones and building fires on the section of the beach reserved for guests only. They have bigger plans too, but they’re saving them all for the night of the Midnight Feast. They want to make clear that Tome’s forest and it’s beaches are for the villagers and not to be fenced off for the use of rich visitors.

Bella wants her revenge to be more permanent than a simple one-off disturbance and she’s determined. With bleached, short hair she’s not easily recognisable as the girl she was and manages to be under the radar. When she first sees Eddie she’s taken aback, he looks so much like someone she used to know. Is she seeing ghosts everywhere? She is psychologically haunted by what happened all those years ago at another midnight feast and she’s appalled by Francesca’s decision to name the event after their final night as friends. Bella wants to make sure that the perfect, pious Sunday supplement Francesca is shown up for who she really is. By this time I was desperate for her to get her comeuppance to as we slowly see the consequences of that night long ago spreading into several local families. Each one has their own grudge: a father who’s been drinking ever since; a baby growing up without it’s mum; a young man with an addiction so strong he’s willing to lie and steal. Yet Francesca and her twin brothers are still rich, successful and as insufferable as ever. So it isn’t just our narrators who have reason to hate The Manor and some of them exact their revenge in amusing ways, while others want to end the retreat and Francesca for good. I loved the folk ritual element, reminiscent of Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home mixed with a dose of Hitchcock’s killer birds. They are the size of a human, covered in black feathers and under their cloak is the huge beak. The villagers take them seriously, even the contractors who turn up to remove the trees don’t want to mess with those marked by the birds, they’d rather give the money back. Are the birds a simple folk tale that keeps Tome safe or are they real? As we countdown to what happened on the big night, two parties twenty years apart reveal their secrets and the birds will have their final say. The ending is terrifyingly final for some, while others will wake up hungover and wondering what exactly they witnessed. As for me, I devoured this book overnight and the final page reveal really made me smile.

Out now from Harper Collins

Meet the Author

Lucy is the No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party, The Guest List and most recently The Midnight Feast. It’s set at a luxury new countryside resort built on old secrets beside an ancient wood. The opening weekend takes place during a heatwave (and with a big summer solstice celebration) and temperatures and tensions are rising, the local community is incensed by the influx of wealthy newcomers and some unexpected guests have come to stay. Then a body is found… 

Lucy always knew wanted to work with books somehow, so studied English at university before working in a bookshop, a literary agency and then as a fiction editor at a big publishing house, during which time she realised that every book starts off as a messy first draft full of plot holes and mistakes. She thought she’d have a go at writing herself — the result of which was her first historical fiction novel, The Book of Lost and Found. She wrote two more historicals, The Invitation and Last Letter to Istanbul, before turning to the dark side and writing her first crime thriller, The Hunting Party: her first Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Month, set over New Year’s Eve at a remote, snowy spot in the Scottish Highlands. 

Next came The Guest List, a murder mystery set at a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick, a Goodreads Choice Awards winner, a Waterstones Book of the Month, and has sold over three million copies. Then came The Paris Apartment, which is a number one New York Times bestseller and Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and all three murder mysteries are currently being adapted for TV and film. 

She’s also written a short story for the brand new Marple collection, a brand new series of short stories featuring Agatha Christie’s legendary detective Jane Marple, alongside writers such as Val McDermid, Kate Mosse, Alyssa Cole, Ruth Ware and Leigh Bardugo, out September 2022 to coincide with Christie’s birthday! 

If you enjoy her books or want to say hi, she’d love to hear from you: She’s @lucyfoleytweets on Twitter and @lucyfoleyauthor on Instagram, or you can check out her Facebook author page @lucyfoleyauthor