Tag: Growing Up

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Secret Orchard by Sharon Gosling 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve really enjoyed Sharon’s last couple of novels, because I love their mix of strong female protagonists who are facing challenges and growing into themselves. This novel focuses on sisters Nina and Bette, set on their family’s farm in Scotland. When their father dies they have no choice but to be under the same roof for the funeral. The sisters are very different, Bette is ten years older than Nina so the age gap meant they weren’t very close anyway, but when Bette left for university she never came back to the farm. Living in London, Bette is a sought after divorce lawyer and her work is her life. She flies back to Scotland the day before the funeral and aims to leave the next day. Nina is hostile towards her sister, she has the opinion that Bette left the farm and never looked back. As their mother tries to smooth things over, Nina is shocked to discover that Bette and her father kept in regular contact by email and that Bette paid for the new roof on the barn. Both sisters are shocked at the will reading when they find out that their father left them both the farm in two equal shares. However, there are massive debts to manage and Nina has always left the finances to their father, preferring to do the farm work than sit in the office. This is the only safe place Nina and her son Barnaby have ever lived. Could they be about to lose it? When getting the farm valued, Bette and the agent walk the perimeter on the land and stumble across a secret orchard, tucked away with it’s entrance concealed off the coastal path. Could this hidden fruit be the answer to their money woes and possibly a mystery to bring both of them together? 

We’re drawn in by an intriguing prologue that suggests an historic love story between two local but rival families. I was dying for Bette and Nina to do some digging on this story and unravel their orchard’s complex back story. The author leaves the crumbs of this story to tantalise us while we move through the present day and the emotional aftermath of Nina and Bette’s father’s death. It’s clear from the outset that these two sisters could be an incredible team. Nina is good at the day to day farming work, rushing between baling and milking while also being there for her son Barnaby. I was on board with Barnaby straight away because he wears his Spider-Man costume everywhere, possibly even to his grandfather’s funeral. This titbit of character and humour reminded me of a little boy who always attended our church for Saturday evening mass and would go up the aisle during communion dressed in costume. Watching his long tail wend it’s way up the aisle so the priest could give a blessing to a mini dragon absolutely made my week. His mum made him take the head off for the blessing, but it was straight back on as he skipped back to his seat. Barnaby is a delight and I enjoyed watching him build a relationship with his Aunt Bette. Bette is brilliant with the financial and legal details, something nether Nina or their father has been able to do. She sets herself the task of working methodically through their chaotic office and showing the bigger picture; they might have been working themselves to the bone, but was all this work actually generating profit? 

Bette understands legal procedures and processes too. When she explains they’ll have to get the farm valued Nina immediately flares up, she doesn’t want to sell the farm. She assumes Bette is looking to cash in, but when Bette explains it’s just the first stage in any plan they make whether that’s to sell or to finance the farm better for the future. She’s calmer and more patient with the process and because Bette’s less attached to the land she can make sensible, dispassionate choices which is just as vital for the farm’s survival. Added to the main plot of saving the farm there are a couple of sub-plots. Nina is often helped out around the farm by neighbouring farmer Cam, who is very capable and good with Barney, not to mention easy on the eye. What would I take for friendship to turn into love. There’s also the mystery of why Bette left the farm so definitively all those years ago and when Ryan enters the picture her reaction left me wondering if he was involved. Cam suggests a visit from an expert he knows, to see if the orchard is viable and what would be the best way to bring some income from it. Nina has never known why her sister left, so her reaction to Ryan is puzzling for her. He has great ideas for the apple trees, some of which appear to be very old species that are rarely grown. He sets them on a programme of managing the trees, pruning and grafting them to enhance their health and yield. There isn’t an off putting amount of detail on how to turn the orchard into a cider business, but there’s enough to pique the reader’s interest and I was rooting for the sister’s success. 

The sisters have such depth to their characters and their lack of communication with each other has led to so much misunderstanding between them. Nina comes across as quite bitter towards Bette and to some extent she sees her sister as someone who has everything: the job, the money and the fancy London lifestyle. Actually it’s Nina whose had everything – a wonderful relationship with her father and precious time working together. She has Barnaby and although her relationship with his father broke down, she loves her son more than anything. With her mother living abroad with her new husband, Nina has taken on the lion’s share of the work around the farm and keeping an eye of their father but Bette has never expected any financial gain from the business, assuming that it belongs to Nina. I could see how the new plans might bring about a better personal relationship between them and I was kept reading by the promise of a warmer relationship between them, the makings of a new generation of the family. There’s a lot of forgiving to do here, but once they’d discussed why Bette left in the first place I could see another life opening up, one in which she might stay. As always with this author, this was such an uplifting and heartwarming story. The potential for both sisters to have their own love stories was also joyous to read, especially if you’re a sucker for an ‘enemies to lovers’ scenario. There are setbacks of course, some of them natural disasters and others caused by deep-seated rivalry. Sharon Gosling writes this type of story beautifully, as she weaves the threads of the sister’s story and the mystery surrounding the orchard’s origin, not to mention why it had been hidden all these years. The setting is wonderful, particularly the orchard with the salt air and the sounds of waves crashing against the cliffs. It’s so romantic and I loved the detail of how the salt permeates and changes the taste of the fruit making it so unique. This was a wonderfully escapist novel, driven by the character’s of Bette, Nina and of course, Barnaby. I thoroughly enjoyed being in their world for a while and I’m sure you will too.

Out 12th September from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

I’ve been writing since I was a teenager, which is now a distressingly long time ago! I started out as an entertainment journalist – actually, my earliest published work was as a reviewer of science fiction and fantasy books. I went on to become a staff writer and then an editor for print magazines, before beginning to write non-fiction making-of books tied in to film and television, such as The Art and Making of Penny Dreadful and Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of the Film.

I now write both children’s and adult fiction – my first novel was called The Diamond Thief, a Victorian-set steampunk adventure book for the middle grade age group. That won the Redbridge Children’s prize in 2014, and I went on to write two more books in the series before moving on to other adventure books including The Golden Butterfly, which was nominated for the Carnegie Award in 2017, The House of Hidden Wonders, and a YA horror called FIR, which was shortlisted for the Lancashire Book of the Year Award in 2018. My last children’s book (to date) is called The Extraordinary Voyage of Katy Willacott, and was published by Little Tiger in 2023.

My debut adult novel, The House Beneath the Cliffs, was published by Simon & Schuster in August 2021. Since then I’ve written three more: The Lighthouse Bookshop, The Forgotten Garden, and The Secret Orchard, which is out in September 2024. My adult fiction tends to centre on small communities – feel-good tales about how we find where we belong in life and what it means when we do. Although I have also published full-on adult horror stories, which are less about community and more about terror and mayhem…

I was born in Kent but now live in a very small house in an equally small village in northern Cumbria with my husband, who owns a bookshop in the nearby market town of Penrith.

Taken from Sharon’s Amazon Author Page.

Posted in Netgalley

The Dark Wives by Anne Cleeves

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Vera is another of my favourite female detectives. She’s like a little, inquisitive bird. She’s generally a bit grumpy and sharp when the occasion demands it. She’s stubborn and lives for her job, knowing instinctively which of her team is best for which task and often expecting long days and nights. That’s definitely the case when a missing person report comes in for a young girl called Chloe living in care. Even more disturbing is the discovery of a body in the nearby park. This young man with a head injury turns out to be a new recruit to the children’s home called Josh Woodburn. Josh was a student but had recently taken a part-time post as a support worker and had worked closely with Chloe. She had come to the home after her mother was hospitalised with mental health problems. Despite the offer to stay with her paternal grandparents Chloe chose the home. She was learning to express herself, trying things on and seeing what fitted. Josh had encouraged her to write about her feelings, so she was journaling daily and dabbling with poetry. The social workers at the home had noticed she maybe had a slight crush on the new worker, so they can’t imagine her harming Josh. On the night Chloe disappeared Josh had come into work and then popped out again, everyone else was enjoying film night and pizza. Their only clue is that a dark, high end Volvo had been seen parked outside the home a few times recently. At the moment, Vera and the team don’t know if they’re looking for a vulnerable witness who is missing or the fleeing perpetrator. Either way they need to find her as soon as possible, before anyone else is harmed. 

The team are getting used to new girl Rosie, as they lost one of their own on the last case. Rosie is what Vera considers a proper Geordie with the obligatory fake eyelashes, fake tan and never going out with a coat. Vera is determined she will have to get used to the breadth of their patch which takes in both cities and vast countryside. Joe is suspicious and is watching her closely, but actually she has good instincts and her empathic manner with the victim’s families yields results and they seem to trust her. Chloe’s grandparents live in Whitley Bay, after selling up their farmhouse in the country. Her granddad tells them how sorry he is that they haven’t made more effort with her. Sadly her parent’s difficult split lead to bitterness and Chloe’s father felt she blamed him for her mother’s mental health. Her grandad would message her and take her out to the hills where they used to live and an old bothy that he still owned with an incredible view. They would take a picnic and simply enjoy being in the open air together. He admits that her relationship with her grandma was more difficult. His wife owns a boutique and was always trying to get Chloe to make more of herself, disliking the Goth look that Chloe had adopted. Vera can see that Chloe doesn’t fit the stereotype of a child in care; she still has connections with family and hasn’t been drawn into drink, drugs or violence. Vera keeps asking herself – what is Chloe running away from? 

Josh’s parents are obviously shocked and grief stricken, but also confused. They had no idea he’d taken a job and financially he didn’t need to work. He could have lived at home and gone into university, but he wanted the full student experience and they could afford it so why not? Josh’s big love was film so the work isn’t even linked to his course at all. His father wonders if he was still trying to impress a girl he’d been involved with called Stella. Stella’s family ran an organic farm where people with mental health issues or who were homeless could help out and gain work experience. Stella seemed almost embarrassed by Josh’s comfortable, middle-class background and put him on the spot. What was he doing to make a difference in the world? Maybe taking this job was a way of showing her he did have a social conscience. Coincidentally the farm is near the village of Gilstead, where Chloe’s granddad’s bothy is. Could Chloe be hiding out there until she can get away. When they arrived at the bothy the next day, Vera is horrified by what they find. There’s another body and the suggestion that someone has been living here. This body must have something that links it to Josh and Chloe, not just that they’re from the same care home but something they seem to be missing at the moment. Gilstead is a pretty village that tourists like to take a look at and this week is no exception. This week sees the annual witch hunt in the village, where children search for the ‘witch’ on the hills and in the dark. Outside the village are three monolithic stones, the so-called ‘Dark Wives’ of the title. Eerie posters of an all seeing eye appear in cottage windows to repel witches and let them know the villagers have their eye on them. It seems a little odd and creepy but essentially harmless. 

The relationships in the team are interesting and Joe’s relationship with Vera is problematic, not least because he feels stuck between his boss and his wife. Sometimes he feels like he’s always trying to please women, whether he’s at work or home. Vera lives alone and doesn’t always understand that responsibility to another person. She seems to assume everyone is as free as she is when she suggests a pie and ping after work. Other times she’s almost motherly and affectionate towards him. It was really interesting how this case seemed to get under Vera’s skin and bring back memories of her father. She still lives in his old cottage with all his things surrounding her and never seems to make it her own. Is she just camping there? Or setting down roots? She thinks about her relationship with her father and how difficult he could be when drunk. Maybe she understands Chloe’s need for a stable and loving parent who’s there for her, instead of the other way round. Sometimes police work is a thrilling chase and other times it’s doing the boring background checks and looking at the detail. This case is a bit of both, but the finale of the Gilstead Witch Hunt is genuinely spooky. With the monolithic Dark Wives in the background and the sun setting, the village comes alive with people taking to the hills to look for the witch. It’s dark and menacing, so as Vera, Joe and Rosie set out with them there’s real tension in the air. Chloe could be out here in the dark, but so could a killer. As they stumble around in the cold, with Rosie finally wearing a coat, it was hard to know whether screams were just excited kids or something more sinister. I love Anne Cleeves’s plots because they’re like a labyrinth, looping round and back on themselves. There are always secrets to unravel within families and these ones are no exception, they’re also emotional because these families are struggling or have broken apart. Most of all I love Vera. She’s like a little terrier and leaves no stone unturned in her determination to find a killer. 

Out now from Pan McMillan

Meet the Author

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV’s VERA, now in it’s third series, and the BBC’s SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann’s DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann’s Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands…

Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer. In 1987 Ann moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival’s first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries.

In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger replaces the CWA’s Gold Dagger award, and the winner receives £20,000, making it the world’s largest award for crime fiction.

Ann’s books have been translated into sixteen languages. She’s a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 200.

 

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 Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Wow! What an incredible debut this is. I absolutely consumed this book and even found myself furtively reading in the middle of the night with a tiny torch. Anna Maria della Piétro is a fascinating heroine and while not always likeable, I found myself rooting for her. Like all the girls at the Piétro, Anna Maria is an orphan, posted through the tiny hatch in the Ospedale Della Pietá often with a note or keepsake from the unlucky girl who had leave her child behind. The author shows us the incredible splendour of Venice, a place I fell completely in love with, contrasted with it’s destitution and desperation. A state that seems more likely for women, especially those from a poorer background. The convent brings up it’s girls very strictly, according to the Catholic faith and the virtues of hard work from scrubbing the floors or working in the nursery. It is also a college of music. Each girl is taught at least one instrument with the best trying out for the orphanage’s orchestra, the figlio. Those chosen will work with the master of music and they will play in the some of the most beautiful basilicas and palazzos in all of Venice. Anna Maria’s great love is the violin and there’s no doubt she will try to become the best.

Anna Maria is a bundle of youthful exuberance, fireworks, talent and ambition. She practically leaps off the page and it seems impossible for her to fail. She starts by aiming to be noticed by the master of music and after that to be the youngest member of the figlio. No sooner is one ambition fulfilled then she’s already thinking of the next. The rewards are also intoxicating – not that Anna Maria cares much for the lace shawls from Burano, but she is partial to the small pastries with candied peel and spices that she loves to share with friends Paulina and ?? Through them we see the girl rather than the musician. They bring out a lightness of spirit, playfulness and a sense of sisterhood. The love she has for her custom made violin is absolutely infectious and when she becomes the favourite of the music master will those girlish aspects of her character remain? Constable shows us a dark underbelly, both to the Ospedale and their music programme. Although the alternatives are even worse. She also shows us huge disparity between the rich and poor in Venice. As visitors we only see the beauty and history of this incredible city, but once I did catch a glimpse of the systems that keep the city going. While waiting on a jetty to catch my water taxi one early morning I met the dustbin men of the city, having to negotiate tiny lanes and creaking jetties to clear up after all the visitors. When Anna Maria gets to play at private palazzos, the grandeur is overpowering. After her performances she is showered with lavish gifts that are at home where she plays but out of place in her bare room. She also notices that those orphans who don’t excel are easy pickings for the rich patrons of the Ospedale. Unsurprisingly, Anna Maria wants to escape the fate of becoming a wife to a much older man and putting aside her talent. As she is taken under the wing of a female patron, Elizabetta ?? She’s impressed by incredible dresses and Elizabetta’s elegant palazzo, but this patron also uses her wealth for good. She shows Anna Maria another fate for the cities’ poor women, by taking her to a brothel where the wealthy woman helps with supplies ensuring these women can make their living in safe and clean surroundings. She points out to Anna the danger in becoming a favourite – there are always people lining up to replace you. When the master is fickle or arrested by a newer, talented young girl what would happen to Anna? It makes her think about the person she replaced for the first time.

I loved the synaesthetic aspect to Anna Maria’s talent because it really added to my understanding of why she loves it so much. I have tastes that are related to colour, so if I see a garden full of beautiful yellow daffodils my mouth begins to water and I get the sensation and taste of lemon sherbet sweets. As Anna Maria plays, colours dance through her and the flurry of colour gives us a sense of how transformative it is for her to play. She is utterly lost in this moments. She’s floating within a rainbow of colour. Even when she begins to compose the written notes on the page are hastily drawn because she’s somewhere else experiencing a unique explosion of sound and colour. Even though she’s not always likeable I was still rooting for her. However some of her tougher decisions are made from within the context of survival. Only by being ruthless and getting to the position of power she craves can she feel safe. Then she can make better, more equitable decisions from a place of safety. This is an incredible story, made all the more powerful because Anna did exist. While this is a novelisation rather than an autobiography she was real and so was her music master . He is a mercurial and sometimes cruel man whose identity remains unspoken – although I did realise who he was part way through. I loved that this is written as a feminist counterpoint to his fame, highlighting a woman of equal talent who is cheated in a creative partnership and ends up with her woke stolen and uncredited. This is an abusive relationship characterised by manipulation, exploitation and a fascination with talented pre-pubescent young girls. Harriet has created a brilliant work of historical fiction that gives voice to one such young woman full of spark, talent and incredible drive to succeed. Her book is totally immersive, plunging us into a world where women were expendable, only there to parrot and enhance a man’s talent. It’s a powerful and compelling tale that I’m sure I’ll still remember when it comes to my end of year favourite books.

Out on 15th August from Bloomsbury

Meet the Author

Harriet Constable is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker living in London. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Economist, and the BBC, and she is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center. Raised in a musical family, The Instrumentalist is her first novel. It has been selected as one of the Top 10 Debuts of 2024 by the Guardian.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I was looking forward to the new Eve Chase novel, but really surprised to win a competition for a hardback copy plus a vase of my favourite flowers, peonies. All I’d done was describe what I loved about Eve’s writing: her female characters; the secrets from the past just waiting to spill out; the gothic feel and atmosphere she creates, especially around old houses; lastly, it’s the dynamics she creates between the characters particularly the mothers and daughters. I feel that in this novel she has gathered all those aspects together beautifully with an intriguing plot and such a relatable central character in Maggie. Maggie is an author, living in Paris and struggling with writer’s blog. Something from her shared past with brother Kit keeps coming into her mind. Her mother Dee Dee died from cancer recently and Maggie was there for her, until her last moments. Her mind keeps being drawn back to her late teenage years when Dee Dee was a famous model, living in the Notting Hill area of London, close to the Portobello Road with it’s antique and collectible traders.

One summer morning, Maggie wakes up to find that Dee Dee hasn’t come home. This isn’t too unusual, late parties and sometimes modelling shoots can drag on into the night and she isn’t worried. She loves spending time with Kit anyway. Kit is using his skateboard when he has a fall, breaking one of the wheels. A stranger comes to their aid, dusting Kit down and trying to repair the wheel. He introduces himself as Wolf and when his eyes lock with Maggie’s they’re the clearest blue she’s ever seen, his name becomes him. There’s also an instant spark between them and for Maggie it’s instantaneous, first time and first sight love. He recognises the connection too. It’s what makes him take the skateboard back to his uncle’s antique shop so he can use his tools to fix Kit’s skateboard properly. Just so he has an excuse to go back. These are emotional days as Maggie navigates this new feeling, but also concern for her mother who still hasn’t come home. She calls Dee Dee’s friends and they rally round but still no one knows where she is. Maggie needs to leave her Paris flat and travel back to England and Aunt Cora’s house in the country. It’s time to ask some questions and catch up with Kit. Once in London she makes her way to the old Notting Hill house with the pink door and bumps into a man on his way out. She’s surprised to see this is a much older Marco, Dee Dee’s hairdresser. He tells Maggie he’s digging out the basement of the house, sending her into a complete panic. Maggie knows that secrets lurk in the garden of their old home and it might not be long before they’re found.

Eve really gives us time to get to know Maggie and Kit. As a child Kit was the baby of the family, adopted by Dee Dee when Maggie was a little older. His blonde curls and sunny disposition give him an angelic demeanour and he’s certainly noticed by Wolf who dotes on him. Even grumpy Gav at the antiques shop falls under Kit’s spell, especially when he sees his polishing skills! As an adult Kit is more wary, now a dealer and collector himself, he has learned that not every customer is as honest as they appear. He does have a big heart though, so when an old gentleman comes into his life asking Kit to source some pieces for his new home, he wants to help. Roy appears a little down on his luck and Kit senses a loneliness under the surface. Of course someone’s appearance isn’t necessarily indicative of how wealthy they are, so Kit takes his request at face value. It’s only when Roy starts to turn up unannounced, wants to go for dinner and then talks his way into Kit’s flat that he starts to wonder if Roy is what he appears to be. In fact he isn’t even sure he likes him. He needs to be firm to shake him off but Kit dislikes confrontation and wonders whether he should trust his instincts, or is he just being paranoid? It’s lovely to have Maggie back in the country, they’re still close, but she seems consumed by that summer years ago when they first met Wolf. Kit isn’t sure what happened that summer, but he knows that one night Maggie took him from their home in a hurry and they ended up on a train to Aunt Cora’s in Paris. He knows she was protecting him but doesn’t know why and he knows his mum was missing for a while. They never returned to the Notting Hill house, instead moving to Cora’s in the country, into the house of their grandparents. Kit promises to look for Wolf, finding his real name helps and soon Kit has him tracked down to one of the better auctioneers in London. Will seeing Wolf again put Maggie back on track?

I fell in love with Maggie. I was a similar age when I first fell I love and reading about her summer with Wolf brought back all those feelings. The wonderment when someone suddenly becomes your absolute world. The beautiful surprise when they feel exactly the same. The discovery of sexual chemistry, totally losing yourself in another person, being vulnerable physically and emotionally, it’s all here. In very delicate strokes Eve sketches a teenage girl who is emotional and intelligent. Little hints about her physical appearance makes us aware that she is a curvy girl, she wears glasses and is a little lacking in confidence. She’s astonished that Wolf loves these things about her and Eve captures that self-consciousness, the apprehension about revealing her body to this young man totally swept away by his obvious desire for her. It’s honestly so beautifully captured that it took me right back there. Maggie’s an incredible sister to Kit and nurtures him with a fiercely maternal love that I think comes from him being so much younger. It takes days before she starts to struggle a little with the responsibility, because Kit’s that age where he’s on all the time. Her feelings for her mother range from concern, to anger and incomprehension. It’s Aunt Cora who has always been the fuck-up of the family, an addict who would arrive at Christmas and grace everyone with her acerbic tongue and disappear again. However, she’s been clean for some time when Maggie and Kit arrive in Paris and it seems strange to Maggie that she’s so together and furious with Dee Dee for leaving them alone. Cora concentrates everything on Kit and Maggie, who is heartbroken and possibly hiding something about the last days they were in London.

You will be swept up by the romance, the mystery and the relationships between the women. I loved the atmosphere of the Notting Hill setting and I always love the smell and sound of an antique or junk shop: the library feel of quietness and reverence; the smell of beeswax; the ticking and chiming of several clocks. I always find myself drifting into another time when I’m in an antique shop. The mystery of adult Kit’s visitor grabbed me too, because his influence is subtle and I found myself questioning just like Kit does. Is he being manipulative or is this a coincidence? Did he intend to do that? Is he lingering for genuine reasons or for some other nefarious purpose? I wasn’t sure, but felt an undercurrent of danger for Kit if he didn’t keep his wits about him. What the story tells us is a therapist’s mantra really – unresolved emotions and trauma will always bring themselves to the surface. Whether through a similar event happening or a big change in our lives, these memories float to the surface with more resonance than they should all this time later. This is because they weren’t processed properly the first time. So Maggie is feeling a torrent of emotions as if she’s still a teenager and they’re just as confusing, painful, beautiful and overwhelming. She and Wolf never had a proper ending and I found myself longing for that closure to happen when she comes back to England. This was a wonderful read, deeply emotional but also a compelling mystery. I honestly think this is Eve’s best novel yet!

Out Now from Michael Joseph.

Meet the Author


Eve Chase is an internationally bestselling British novelist who writes rich, layered and suspenseful novels, thick with secrets, unforgettable characters and settings. Her latest novel, The Midnight Hour – ‘Her best yet…I loved every word’ – Claire Douglas – publishes June ’24, in the UK. Other novels include, The Birdcage, The Glass House (The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, US) a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde (The Wildling Sisters, US) which was longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award, and Black Rabbit Hall, winner of Paris’ Saint-Maur en Poche prize for Best Foreign Fiction. She works in the Writer’s Shed at the bottom of her garden, usually with Harry, her golden retriever.

Say hello @evepollychase on Instagram, X, and Facebook

Posted in Netgalley

Bonjour Sophie by Elizabeth Buchan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Can she escape the darkness of her past in the City of Light?

It’s 1959 and time for eighteen-year-old Sophie’s real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds diversion and excitement in a love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands.

She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will be her chance to discover more about her family background, and, perhaps, to find a place where she can finally belong.

When Sophie eventually arrives in the Paris arising from the ashes of the war, it’s both everything she imagined, and not at all what she expected…

Most readers will know I have a fascination for the period directly after WWI, but recently I’ve been looking at books and films that have explored the aftermath of WW2. Originally I watched a film called The Aftermath starring the brilliant Jason Clarke and Alexander Skaarsgaard that followed a British colonel posted out to Nuremberg after the war ends. His job is to help rebuild and I remember being shocked that people were living in homes where their outer walls were missing, almost like looking into a doll’s house. Since then I’ve read novels set in the occupied countries like Poland and France and gaining other viewpoints makes you remember that the majority of people are caught up in a war they don’t want to fight, are tormented with memories of things they’ve done to survive and are still waiting for the return of those they love. I think we imagine that once the war was over, everything went back to normal, but that was far from the truth. Prisoners of war were kept, by us, for several years after the war ended, rationing only ended in 1954 and we were still rebuilding London till the mid 1970’s. It’s in this aftermath that we meet our heroine Sophie, just finishing boarding school in England with her friend Hettie. Sophie has a complicated past and her school years have been a temporary period of fun and friendship. Now she must return to the home and parish of clergyman Osbert Knox, an English village where her French mother ended up in dire straits during the war. Camille was pregnant and had fled Paris during the occupation, leaving behind Sophie’s father who was fighting in the Resistance. Lucky for the Knoxes, Camille had great housekeeping skills and she repaid their kindness in cooking, cleaning and implementing a household system that enabled them to concentrate on their parishioners. Sadly, Camille died and now the Knoxes are expecting Sophie to return from school and pick up where her mother left off, learning to keep house and support the couple. Sophie needs to earn back her keep and education, only then will Osbert return her mother’s precious savings book. This was money that Camille managed to save from her meagre allowance, knowing that Sophie would need something to restart her life with. Sophie dreams of returning to Paris, the home of her parents, but there’s only problem. She is sure that money is being taken from her mother’s savings. So she makes a decision to bring her escape forward, to find the savings book and flee with whatever is left to France and look for her father.

Sophie is a resilient girl, intelligent and able to read people. She doesn’t trust Osbert, but is still horrified to find that he expects her thanks to extend to much more than cooking and cleaning. Now she must escape and sooner rather than later. Sophie wants to build an independent life for herself, full of new experiences. She isn’t afraid about change, she’s quite matter of fact about those experiences she wants to try. She has a friendship with Johnny from the nearby farm and plans to lose her virginity with him, rationalising that it’s something she wants to get out of the way. This ability to single out what she wants and succeed in getting it will stand her in good stead once she gets to Paris. She has a deep yearning to connect with her history, even if her father hasn’t survived, she wants to know what he did during the war. Was he the hero that her mother painted him to be? Sophie knows that the scars of war run deep, that her father might have done terrible things to survive. The author writes about the moral compromises people make in war without judgement, allowing the reader to make their own decisions, but also reinforcing the point that no one knows what they’re capable of until they’re under duress. Finding her father isn’t easy though. She takes work in an art gallery and uses her wage to hire a private investigator. She finds out about the paintings looted from Jewish families during the occupation, removed by the Germans as the owners were transferred to concentration camps. However there were French collectors and gallery owners who collaborated in these deals, using a terrible atrocity as a business opportunity. She also finds that there are so many people looking for someone: husbands who never returned from the battlefield but are not amongst the dead; resistance fighters executed and thrown in a shallow grave; women killed for their collaboration with German soldiers during the war. There are vendettas and grudges still playing out and Sophie is warned that she might not like what she finds. Some secrets should remain buried. The buildings in Paris echo the the trauma still felt by the people, from a distance they look okay but close up it’s clear that there’s been no maintenance. The paintwork is peeling and the stone is damaged, but there is still beauty.

I really enjoyed the friendship between Sophie and Hettie, who has returned home to constraints of her own. She is trapped in within the expectations of her parents and her class. Hattie is expected to be a ‘deb’ and be presented for the London season. If she shines she might attract the right sort of husband. Her only route is marriage and children, no independence or career path. She has to be engaging but not appear too clever and put suitors off. Neither girl has any type of sex education, is not allowed her own bank account or make decisions about her own fertility. It’s scary to me that a lot of these restrictions lasted into my mother’s lifetime! Thankfully Hettie has a belated rebellion. I loved that the girl’s friendship lasts a lifetime and they give each other support and strength. This feel like a transitional period in time, where the world is trying to recover from war and it was a huge realisation to me that it took this long. I remembered reading that it was Ed Balls who, as chancellor, paid the final debts from WW2 and being so shocked. It takes people a lot longer to heal and return to themselves. My own father in law took many years after WW2 moving from the Siberian forest through the Middle East and North Africa and into Europe. He eventually settled in London, but his wartime experience still haunted him when he lived with us in the 2000s. I think Elizabeth Buchan has a way of writing about how we come to terms with generational trauma like this. Here she has mixed a thoughtful and complex historical period with a coming of age story. Just as Sophie is becoming a woman, the country she escapes to is also in the midst of a change. It is by finding out about WW2 and the terrible stories of living in Paris under occupation that she starts to understand her parent’s story and the courageous choices they made. Despite the pain and loss, Sophie’s experiences have a joy about them as she attempts to build herself a life with resilience and happiness. Buchan’s writing always has a melancholic, bittersweet feel. There’s a sense that life and the greater world are imperfect, even dangerous, but we can still live happily within it.

Out now from Corvus Books

Meet the Author

Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton and Two Women in Rome. Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival.

Posted in Squad Pod

The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux by MJ Robotham

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Everyone knows Ruby Devereaux’s books. But no one knows her story… until now.

From a teenager in wartime England to a veteran of modern-day London – via 1950’s New York, the Swinging Sixties, Cold War Berlin, Venice and Vietnam – Ruby Devereaux has lived one hell of a life: parties, scandals and conflict zones, meeting men and adventure along the way. In a writing career spanning seven decades and more than twenty books, she’s distilled everything into her work. Or has she?

There were times during this novel where I wished I was the transcriber in the room, just so I could be the first to hear this lifetime of stories. Ruby Devereaux’s editor is under pressure from above. Ruby is almost 90 years old and the publisher is determined to get the one last book she owes them. So her editor suggests that she closes her illustrious writing career with a memoir. Ruby was on the verge of packing up her typewriter, but she does perhaps have one story left in her, or maybe twelve…

The bulk of the book is Ruby’s memoir as told to her transcriptionist Jude, each chapter named after a man in her life and telling the story of their relationship. Although it’s not as simple as that, through these affairs she takes us through the latter half of the 20th Century and right across the world. It takes us through one woman’s history, but also the ever changing landscape of the world around her, taking in those unforgettable moments and some fascinating social history too. I used to be fascinated with my 90 year old grandmother and the changes she’d seen over a lifetime in the countryside: from horse drawn ploughs to huge tractors; from cycling everywhere to her children owning cars; from handwritten letters to online communication. This has similar vibes, but on a bigger scale as Ruby moves from peacetime to war and across three continents with the world constantly changing beneath her. The author weaves together the social history, world events and Ruby’s growing up with romance and scandal. Ruby has spent seventy years telling her character’s stories, but now it’s time for her own. It’s definitely a life well lived as it’s taken her to the 1950’s New York of the Mad Men, Berlin and Budapest during the Cold War, into Vietnam and into relationships with twelve different men. These are the men who’ve inspired her novels. Make no mistake though, this isn’t really about the men in her life, this is about Ruby. Each relationship captures where Ruby is at that point in her life; a chapter in her personal growth. Ruby easily outshines her male counterparts because she has such a zest for life and breaks society’s rules and expectations about women everywhere she goes. As a young girl in post-war England she’s very matter of fact about her first sexual experience, wanting it out of the way before she leaves home. She’s an incredibly resilient character, despite experiencing loss and heartbreak at a very young age. She makes a promise to herself and the person she’s lost to keep going, grabbing opportunities whenever they arise. Never realising that all along she’s writing the most exciting story she’ll ever tell.

It’s this resilience and insistence on saying yes to experiences that take her across the globe. Starting in London, she lives and falls in love in the romantic city of Venice, via a terrible experience in New York that spawns her second book. She then explores Saigon and Budapest, before finally ending up in Cornwall. She spends time in a commune, dabbles in the world of spying and has assignments in war zones. Just as in her love life, she’s tough and doesn’t dwell on failures or knock backs, she chalks it up to experience and moves on. There is a danger of some of the men in her life becoming a mere backdrop to Ruby and her escapades, it’s very hard to keep up with her energy. However the later sections in England felt a little more detailed and because they’re not as filled with adventures, the men have more room to develop. Their relationships with Ruby feel deeper and more real. Ruby is always at the centre though and I loved following her character development. We can see which experiences have given her strength and a sense of boundaries. I love a scandal so this was definitely a fun romp in parts, whilst also having a sense of reflection and self-awareness as Ruby becomes an older lady. There’s a bravery in her willingness to share her life, particularly her emotions and those difficult parts of her life – relationships that went wrong, the loss, motherhood and her mental health. However, despite this we’re caught up in Ruby’s humour and ability to heal. I think the author has created a brilliant character and blended actual history with her life very well. Ruby is such an incredibly memorable character and I enjoyed spending time in her company.

Published by Aria 11th April 2024

Meet the Author

M J Robotham had wanted to write from a very young age, inspired by the book ‘Harriet the Spy’. However life got in the way and it was journalism and having a family keeping her occupied. She was a midwife for several years, but started to write seriously after completing an MA in Creative Writing. her first novel was A Woman of War followed by The Secret Messenger set in occupied Venice.

Her next two books were set in pre and post war Berlin, then wartime Norway, both are places she loves to visit. In her spare time she visits the gym, to knit unusual things and enjoys the music of Jack Savoretti,

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Regular readers will know how much I love stories of large families, their complicated dynamics and the psychological ins and outs of why they are, the way they are. This was the perfect read for me and I was immediately intrigued by the deep family secrets at the centre of the three sister’s relationships with their mother Margo. The three sisters are: eldest, Rachel married to Gabriel with two small girls and a career as a lawyer; Imogen, the playwright who is anticipating long term boyfriend William to conduct the perfect proposal while being unsure whether it’s what she wants. Then there’s Sasha, the fierce and rather wild youngest sister, who is struggling between her family and her coercive husband Phil while family friend Johnny watches on, wildly in love with her. The sisters live in the shadow of their mother Margo and father Richard’s tempestuous love affair and marriage which sadly ended in divorce. His drinking and their arguing lead to Richard walking out, to join his secret other family. None of the girls have ever seen their father since that day. Rachel remembers moving to their holiday home Sandycove from their house in London and Margo being unwell. She and Imogen, along with their Aunt Alice try to keep the house running, but Sasha is still a baby struggling to cope with Margo’s unavailability. In the present day, every one of the Garnett girls is carrying a secret, but Sasha’s secret has the potential to blow the family apart.

I loved the community on the island, where the family home has always stood. Rachel and Gabriel now live in Sandycove with their children. Rachel works in London during part of the week and Gabriel works as a counsellor but also looks after the home and the girls. Sandycove is still the official place where the Garnett family get together for special occasions and Margo is constantly popping in and out, helping with cooking and childcare. She now lives at at The Other Place, a bungalow up in the village. It’s here she conducts day to day life and her illicit love affairs, kept separate from her family, who often know a lot more than she realises. Because they’re together in the week, Gabriel and Margo often plan family get togethers and outings. This bothers Rachel who knows they’re only trying to take the burden from her, but she often feels like Sandycove isn’t their own, it belongs to everyone. In gaining the family legacy they’ve also lost something. Their close knit days of just the four of them are gone. Imi’s story starts in beautiful Venice where her perfect boyfriend William is set to propose. She knows this because Margo and Rachel are calling on a daily basis to hear what they’ve been up to. They’ve been a couple for a long time now and her family love William. They think he’s perfect too and Imi knows that if she vocalised her doubts to her mum or one of her sisters they’d think she’s lost her mind. On her return the read through of her play is set to begin and an up and coming Hollywood star has been cast in the lead role. Imi isn’t sure about Rowan and worries that it may be the worst kind of stunt casting, but from the moment she meets the actress, she can’t stop looking at her. Having always felt her relationship falls short of her parent’s great love, finally Imi knows what a coup de foudre feels like. Sasha has had a radical and fierce short haircut that she knows Margo will hate and will make her look very different from her sisters. Sasha is holding on to something else they’ll hate too, she is in contact with their father Richard and his family. Over the course of the novel, all the secrets hoarded by the sisters will come out. Can their close knit relationships survive?

Each of the three sisters are beautifully drawn by the author and became completely real to me very quickly. I loved their family dynamic too, even though I might find it a little bit suffocating if they were mine! Margo especially is a lot to take, with her daily phone calls and constant ‘pop-in’s’. There’s also the potential embarrassment of her sexual adventures, although I did enjoy her liberation and openness about having an active sex life as a grandmother. Sandycove has so many deep emotions buried in it’s walls. It almost runs like a stately home, with a list of annual events for family and friends that are a fixture in the village calendar. The family’s parties are incredible and I’d love to go to one! I thought the way the author used flashbacks was clever, because they helped me understand each of the women. So we see Sandycove as the home of 16 year old Margo who thinks she’s met the love of her life. Margo’s mother is unconvinced and is determined to keep this older man away from her daughter. Margo isn’t easily dissuaded from her love affair and ropes her sister Alice into helping her, eventually fleeing her childhood home with Richard in tow. Her self-awareness doesn’t stretch to realising that she’s now doing just the same with her own daughters – so sure that William is the one for Imi she’s planning the wedding before the proposal. We also go back to the moment when this family fell apart; this past event answered a lot of questions for me. I loved the moment of realisation for Rachel that her need for independence lies back there, in fact it was about survival. Yet she knows her independence made Margo feel unwanted and also masked a need to live up to her mother’s expectations and a fear of being unable to. She didn’t want to live somewhere that people came up to her in the street to tell her how like Margo she was. She wanted to live somewhere there was no Margo, maybe then there’d be enough space left for her to be Rachel. She knows that now these old feelings put a distance between her and Gabriel, in fact the whole family see strong, capable Rachel without thinking how exhausting it must be at times, how she can never be vulnerable.

Imi longs for someone to listen, so much so that on the day of her Venice proposal she drinks at the hotel bar with a young man just because he doesn’t talk over her, or assume what she wants in her life. When William proposes he uses the words ‘it’s what everyone wants’ before asking if it’s what she wants. It’s as if she’s ripe for rebellion, but doesn’t know how yet. Sasha’s rebellion is rather more visible, the short platinum blonde crop is a backlash against the long flowing hair that makes her a Garnett girl. Her identity is visible in the way she looks, with her slightly severe and spiky clothes and her red-soled high heels. She picks at Imi for accepting Margo’s bullying and interference, knowing straight away that Margo had bought Imi’s dress for the engagement party. Sasha can see that though she is beautiful she isn’t comfortable in it. In fact Imi wasn’t even comfortable with the party. Yet Sasha soon returns to Phil’s side, as he lurks in the doorway looking put out. He hates Garnett parties and prefers to have Sasha to himself; there are deep-seated reasons why Sasha has fallen into this possessive relationship, mistaking control for love. I thought these labyrinthine dynamics were brilliantly done, so real and perfectly in tune with coercive control and how intergenerational trauma works. I knew it was going to take the revelation of all the family secrets, probably in an explosive Garnett way, for these dynamics to change and for the girls and Margo to heal. I was so sucked into their world that I read the book in two sittings, desperate to see the girls speak their truth and start controlling their own lives. I also wanted healing for Margo too, because she’s been at war with an idea for the past twenty years. Her impression of the man who left her and the life he left her for is all in her head and it’s maybe time to face reality. The Garnett women can only move forward by being honest and real with each other and themselves. This was a wonderful read for people like me – the nosey and psychologically trained. It’s astute, beautifully written and full of strong women who are talented, ambitious and intelligent. It was a joy to read.

Published in paperback this month by HQ Stories.

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Meet the Author

Georgina Moore grew up in London and lives on a houseboat on the River Thames with her partner, two children and Bomber, the Border Terrier.   The Garnett Girls is her first novel and is set on the Isle of Wight, where Georgina and her family have a holiday houseboat called Sturdy. Georgina is working on her second novel, Walnut Tree Island, which will be published in 2025.

Posted in Netgalley

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Charlotte and Alec Salter have four teenage children and live in the small village in East Anglia. We meet them on Alec’s 50th birthday where a big evening party is planned for most of the village as well as family. Yet at the beginning of the party there are no Salters present. Charlotte went for a walk and hasn’t returned. Alec did same, but they didn’t go together or in the same direction. Fourteen year old Etty is worried. The last of the Salters and yet to leave home she is starting to panic. She loves her mum, but if she is gone, for whatever reason, that means she has to spend two years at least in the company of her father. Just the two of them. Alone.

In the days that follow as the police investigate, there are rumours that Charlotte and family friend Duncan Ackerley were having an affair. Of course it was more widely known that Alec was seeing villager Mary Thorne, in fact his own daughter heard him on the phone to her from the other line the night of the party. When the Ackerleys invite the Salters for Christmas Day, only Lottie turns up at first, her brothers are late and Paul is probably giving it a swerve altogether. Yet Etty thinks it would be worse to sit at home, staring, worrying and jumping at every sound. As dinner time approaches, the Ackerley’s start to wonder where Duncan has got to. He’s been out for a walk, possibly down to the boat as there is a super high tide and he needs to move it. It’s Etty and Giles that start to look for him and he does try to shield her eyes as they come closer and see that Duncan is slumped in the water, dead. We move between the party night and the Christmas days that follow and twenty years later when all the Salters are once again in residence at the family home.

Everything about the house is dated and dilapidated, including their father Alec who is succumbing to dementia. Etty, ever the lawyer, is organising his move into a nursing home and the clearance of their parents possessions. For this job she has found a bright and organised woman called Bridget. She gathers the siblings and tells them that the easiest way is for them to put specific coloured post-its on their must have items, then she takes away the rest for sorting, selling and recycling. It’s emotional, especially since there are now only three of them. Their brother Paul never coped with life and the loss of their mother and sadly committed suicide on the anniversary of her disappearance. Meanwhile, now a TV personality, Morgan Ackerley is home to record a podcast on that Christmas, speculating on what happened to Charlotte and his father. This is going to stir up the village and make life difficult for both families. When a sudden event leads to yet another death, the police are called and a new detective looks at the old files as well as this new case. Are they linked in some way? Despite her boss seeming to warn against digging up what’s been long buried, this detective is determined to find out what happened to Charlotte Salter.

Seeing how much these families have changed over time is so interesting and I found myself wondering how different the Salters and Ackerleys might have been if this crime hadn’t happened. Etty melted my heart a little bit because she’s clearly so close to her mum and on the night of the party she’s the one who’s trying to raise the alarm because she knows something isn’t right. The boys are largely off doing their own thing and seem almost inured to the state of their parent’s marriage. The consensus is they’ve probably had a row, but Etty knows that despite a row, or their dad being on the phone to Mary Thorne at 2am the night before, there is no way that her mum wouldn’t turn up to his birthday party. She has always kept up appearances in that way. She even looks at her father and wonders whether he could have killed her. Her relationship with each parent couldn’t be more different, there’s a distance between Etty and her father both in the past and the present. In fact he doesn’t seem that invested in any of his children. Yet Etty can still imagine the smell of her mum’s perfume and what she would be wearing and I could imagine Charlotte hugging her daughter, her perfume just one of the many scents that signify home. With only the boys and her distant father left who will she go to for hugs? I could feel her panic as realises that after Christmas, the boys will go back to jobs and university and she will be left alone with their father for two years. I could also see the shadow of this huge loss in the adult Etty: an awkwardness about whether the family kiss to greet each other or not; keeping a lawyer’s professional manner at all times; doing all the organising and keeping busy so she can remain detached. She doesn’t cry, even when finding memories of their childhood. She holds herself stiffly, almost brittle and I wondered how much it would take for her to break.

There are many ghosts here. It’s not just Etty who was changed. They all feel the loss of their brother Paul deeply and he’s the empty chair at the table, even now. They tiptoe around each other, trying not to open old wounds but when a fire is started at Bridget’s home a new murder investigation is opened. Either the arsonist didn’t realise Bridget was at home, or didn’t care. Was their aim to kill the house clearer or was it to hide evidence that she’d unwittingly taken into her home alongside the Salter’s belongings? I found this mystery so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading and I loved the psychological aspects of how these unsolved crimes had affected the families and the village as a whole. There were a couple of crucial points past and present where everyone I suspected seemed to be going for a walk alone – without even having a dog as an excuse! I was suspecting that Lottie’s husband wasn’t as advanced in dementia as she seemed, but couldn’t be sure. The reveals were satisfying, but it was the methods of concealment that really blew me away and I loved how thorough the investigating detective was. She wanted to be sure, whether or not it disturbed or upset some people and I loved that about her. Mainly I thought about how the author successfully showed the long term effects of a crime like this, even years on from the actual incident. These children were all changed forever and the villagers have lived under a fog of suspicion for years. Etty particularly left me thinking of all the events I’ve been able to enjoy with my mum over the last 50 years, that she and Charlotte had missed out on. Finding a balance between the real emotions that surround a crime and creating a page-turning mystery is difficult, but here I think the authors have really pulled it off.

Out 29th Feb in Hardback from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together