Tag: Historical Fiction

Posted in Squad Pod

Loch Bound by Rebecca Templeton 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Mermaids. Monsters. Magic. But this story is no fairy tale . . . 

Kilmara, Scotland. 1725. For fifty years, Iris has accepted the curse that blighted her life. By night, she is a heartbroken woman, destined to walk the misty shores of Kilmara without growing older. By day, she is Moireach, a terrifying monster imprisoned in the murky depths of Loch Moine.

When bodies begin appearing on the shore, the villagers are convinced Moireach is responsible. So a hunter – the rugged, ruthless Henry Carver – is summoned to slay the monster of the loch. 

Iris must break her curse before she is killed for crimes she cannot believe she has committed. But as Kilmara’s hunt for the monster becomes ever more fevered, she and Henry are drawn together in a dangerous game of impossible attraction. 

And when a figure from Iris’s past suddenly reappears, she must choose what – or who – she is willing to sacrifice to win her freedom.

Because there is no happily-ever-after when you are the monster.

I love books where monsters are used in a clever way and I also love books set in Scotland and this brings the two together beautifully. I’ve recently been reading about mermaids and their dual narrative of being beautiful women with long hair, beautiful faces and glistening scales or terrifying sea monsters dragging sailors into the deep and eating them alive. It’s a long way from the Little Mermaid. However, what is common is the misogyny of the narrative – an early Syrian goddess was said to have had an illicit relationship with a youth, ashamed of her actions she then drowned herself in a lake. She was forgiven by the gods but from then on had the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish, thus remaining celibate for life as punishment. I’ve never liked the tale of The Little Mermaid who falls in love with a man and wishes to live on land. She can have her wish granted and have human legs, but is doomed to having pain like knives in them. The wish to be and live like a human has to have a penance attached. The fashion for taxidermy, curiosities and freak shows in Victorian Britain meant that many women were performing as mermaids but also strange mixes of animals were being sewn together and shown as mermaids, such as the strange example at the Horniman Museum in London. In this story she’s a truly fearsome creature named Moireach with yellow eyes, sharp teeth, shiny scales and the drive of a predator. She lives in the loch, only changing after dark when she reverts back to her human form – Iris. As a young girl Iris defied her father and fell in love with Thane. He forbade their relationship, as the daughter of a laird she had to marry well and for the clan’s gain not her own. Devastated she visited a witch hoping to be free of her father’s obligations, but the witch cursed her and she became banished to the loch by day. Now even fifty years later, when Iris emerges she is still the beautiful girl of her youth. Thane has never come for her and now when dead men are being found around the loch with their hearts ripped out the name of the monster is on everyone’s lips. Her childhood friend Duncan, now an old man, knows it cannot be Iris. She isn’t capable. He hides her with all the love and loyalty he had fifty years earlier, even though she chose someone else. The current laird has made a big decision, he’s hired a hunter of monsters, a man called Henry Carver and he has never failed to catch his prey. 

The backdrop of this story is perfect, using the mist, cold and breathtaking landscape to add to its mystery. There are parallels with Outlander here in the feel of this place, making good use of Scotland as a thin place where the paranormal, time travel and a history of monsters seems part of life. With the historical backdrop of the witch trials it’s also a dangerous place, particularly for a woman. Iris talks about the smell of the burnings and how women must be careful, but it’s no easier being a monster when men are turning up dead. The background of misogyny and brutal witch trials hangs over them all and shows a willingness to believe in magic, curses and female malevolence. It’s not just witches though, other fantastical creatures exist here like the seelies and selkies and there’s more one woman with powers a man would kill for. All of these things appear to be aligned with the nature that surrounds them and we can see that wildness as Iris changes to Moireach. It’s not just the yellow eyes and scales but the way she becomes a predator with only one goal. However she has only killed things in the loch, never on land before. She has always been able to keep her dual personalities separate before, never feeling Moireach at night when she leaves the lake. Now that separation is becoming harder. Is that because of the presence of the hunter or is the curse changing? Will Iris will be lost forever? 

The hunter is an interesting character, made solitary by loss and preferring to keep moving from place to place. His opinions on grief are based on hard experience, when his wife died he didn’t just lose her, but also that part of himself. The part that loved her. He knows that grief doesn’t go away, he’s had to learn to live with that dead part. When he sees Iris in her human form something awakens in him, even though he notices that she seems like a wild creature. She’s always around at night, wearing men’s clothing and runs away if he tries to get too close, with her flaming red hair trailing behind her. There is something between them and it could be love, or it could be his hunter’s instinct kicking in. Iris can feel it too, even though her aim has always been to break the curse and find Thane, the man she was in love with and wanted to marry. I felt like Iris grew up in the course of the story. It’s as if Duncan’s protection of her has kept her a young girl in mind as well as looks. Maybe she needed to break out a little in order to gain some wisdom and perspective. If she does break the curse, will Thane come for her? She would need to decide whether she wants the life she expected when she was cursed or if the time she’s spent as Moireach has changed her outlook? I also started to wonder if Duncan had a vested interest in keeping her under control. 

Reading this felt like being a child again and discovering a fairy tale. One that’s rooted in darkness. Yes, some elements are fantastical, but it doesn’t read like fantasy. It’s more like a hybrid of historical fiction and fairy tales with aspects of a thriller. The pace speeds up as Iris begins to run out of time and we still don’t know why she was cursed, who cursed her and what will finally break it. There are those in the village who may seem kind, but could benefit from keeping Iris in her watery prison. As she takes us back to those fateful days in flashback, when her family were all together and her father didn’t yet know about Thane. I was engrossed with the tangled web of lies and betrayal but also by the question of what life Iris would choose if she could lift the curse. Would she pick the life she’d always wanted or had things changed? She has memorialised her relationship with Thane but he has let her down by not coming for her as she’d expected. Maybe she would want a different life, rooted in her present reality instead of the fantasy she has held all this time. There are some unexpected revelations too, making for an exciting and absorbing conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this dark and feminist take on the mermaid stories we’re used to and I look forward to what the author writes next. 

Meet the Author

Rebecca Templeton has had a love of books from a very early age and had lofty childhood aspirations of being a writer, though she ended up joining the legal profession instead. When her husband encouraged her to start writing again, she rediscovered her creative outlet and hasn’t looked back since.

When not writing or working, Rebecca can usually be found crocheting giant blankets, baking or watching Gilmore Girls. She is also owned by a couple of very energetic children.

Posted in Netgalley

The Wine Dark Sea by Victoria Hislop 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Greece, 1946. In the power vacuum remaining after the Second World War, a brutal civil war erupts between rival left- and right-wing factions. The conflict spirals as the country pays a bitter price in human lives and fighting soon erupts in the mountains, turning villages into battlefields and pulling ordinary women and children into the fray.

When the government soldiers come to Kalopetra, Fotini is nursing her newborn second child. She urges her daughter, Iliana, to hide with the older children as she and the other women are herded into trucks. Weeks later, soldiers return for the children . . . but they are not to be reunited with their mothers, a wholly different fate awaits them.

Fotini finds herself transported to a prison on the island of Chios, where she befriends Markella, whose little son, Nikos, is wise beyond his years. After months of imprisonment, when Fotini and Markella find themselves separated from one another – and from Nikos – Fotini vows to hunt not only for her own child but for Markella’s too. 

The Wine-Dark Sea tells of families flung apart across continents and of a strong, determined mother who resolves not to let war destroy hers.

This epic story from Victoria Hislop really taught me a lot about a period of history I know little about. She has taken an incredible amount of research for this novel and I imagine some of it was harrowing. She has taken the stories from women living through this time and shown some of them through one family, magnifying their power. The events happen after the end of WW2, a turbulent time that has already seen the punishment of Nazi collaborators and now many would like to see the end of their right wing government. The setting is one little village called Kalopetra where Fotini’s husband has gone to fight for government forces against the communists. This immediately causes a schism in the family because Fotini’s sister Stella has a husband who fights for the communists. The sudden divide is causing friction across the village, but the women left behind must work together if they’re to survive. When government forces come to the village they capture all the women and Fotini is allowed to bring her baby son with her. However, her older daughter Iliana is left behind along with a group of older children. How will they survive? That moment of Iliana chasing the truck with her mother unable to do anything to reassure her is burned into my memory. Although soon enough communist forces will round up the children and move them into camps where they are fed, clothed and then sent on to other countries like Yugoslavia. After having the entire burden of the other village children on her shoulders, Iliana is relieved to be fed and clothed by such kind people and so the process of brainwashing begins. All Fotini can think about is returning to her peaceful village and living the rustic existence that has survived for centuries, she doesn’t know that her way of life is already dead and nothing will be the same again. 

The author uses Fotini as her main narrator, but we also have chapters from Iliana’s perspective as she grows into adulthood and some through Nikos, the clever son of Fotini’s friend in their camp. These two narratives show how far and wide one family could be spread as Iliana thrives in the communist way of life and Nikos is chosen for a programme directly backed by the Queen of Greece. Iliana sums it up perfectly when she asks:

“Was there a single family on earth that had remained intact, or in the place they belonged or wanted to be.” 

One of the benefits of a communist system is that women are seen as equal to men and this intrigues Iliana who knows that if they’d remained in Kalopetra her fate would have been the same as her mother and grandmother. She’d be married to someone in the village and bring up babies. Here she could learn to drive or even fly a plane. She longs to be an engineer and hopes if she studies hard she will have the opportunity to go to university. It’s easy to see how a young woman like her would see communism as an improvement on what she expected from life, scratching out a living from the land and being second to a man. In the government camp Fotini is holding out against signing a confession that she was a communist. Those who do sign the waiver are set free but forever marked as traitors to the government, especially in the eyes of their fellow villagers. Fotini doesn’t want that hanging over their family when they return home. She doesn’t know whether her husband is alive or dead, but isn’t longing for his return. She makes friends within the camp, particularly with Markella who comes from an island with a leper colony where she used to work. It’s where she plans to return. As her baby Mitsos grows he plays with Markella’s interesting boy Nikos, something of a child prodigy when it comes to numbers. His fascination is with ships and he will build them out of any material he can find to hand. It’s not long before he’s noticed and singled out for a different institution backed by the Queen. From there he seems to disappear and Fotini is determined to find both her daughter and Nikos when she is released. When she is released it’s clear one thing hasn’t changed – the generosity of Greek people. As Fotini and Mitsos travel to search for the lost children people take them in, share their own dwindling food supplies and clothe them too. It restores her faith in humanity that there is still such generosity left in a people who have been tearing each other apart. There is a glimmer of hope for the future. 

I really enjoyed the later parts of the novel where we see Fotini piecing life back together in the city of Piraeus. It’s a massive change for this country girl but she can see the benefits of more job opportunities, entertainments like the cinema and eating good Greek food again at a lovely restaurant run by Demetrios. He’s such a kind man and gently reminds Fotini that she can’t spend the rest of her life wandering and looking for the children. The best thing she and Mitsos can do is stay in one place and hope the children find her, the place she was trying to get back to is gone. There was so much material to choose from in this book that it could have filled a trilogy. I had questions about all sorts of characters, such as Fotini’s relationship with her sister Stella. I also had questions about Nikos’s journey and his adoptive mother, there just seemed to be more about her that could have been explored. However, I loved Iliana’s growth and her life as an adult living under communism. The differences between Greece and Hungary were fascinating and imagine some very heavy editing of this material had to be done to get it into one novel. As always the author captures the beauty of the Greek islands, their isolation and wildness and how this conflict disrupts a way of life that existed for centuries. The book symbolically ends with a circular dance that’s life affirming and perhaps a way of capturing, just for a few moments, that lost way of being. 

Out from Headline Books September 24th 2026

Meet the Author

Victoria Hislop is the international bestselling author of The Island and The Return. In the United Kingdom, she writes travel features for The Sunday Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, House & Garden, and Woman & Home. The Island sold over a million copies in the UK and has been translated into 24 languages. Victoria’s second novel, The Return, has been published in more than a dozen languages. She lives in Kent, with her husband Ian and their two children.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads June 2026

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.
Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

In our prologue we find Birdie in the pharmacy of a small town in the southern states of America buying ‘Merry Widows’ condoms by the dozens. I then became so engrossed in the story of this fascinating woman and the relationship she makes with a girl called Meg at the orphanage that I forgot all about the question that came to mind; why she would be buying so many? Thankfully all questions are answered in this incredible book that’s moving, infuriating, saddening and hilarious all at once. The plot takes us on a journey as Birdie travels to visit her newly married sister Frances who is living with her in-laws at their house Idlewilde. Frances is at great pains to point out her new family, the Tartts, are well to do and Birdie must try not to show her up. In truth, Birdie can only ever be her glorious self and Mrs Tartt is too much of a Southern lady to show anything but politeness to a guest. Frances’s husband, Rory Tartt, is a good looking man, but to Birdie he seems to have something on his mind. He’s eager to leave in the morning and eager to be in his office in the evenings, even retiring to his own bedroom at the end of the day and not his wife’s. Frances confides in Birdie that there’s been very little in the bedroom department and Birdie starts to worry. One thing she knows is money and if she didn’t know better she’d be concerned about Rory’s business and where he’s going. When asked to book-keep for the local orphanage Frances again gives her a note of warning. The president of the orphanage board, Mrs Garnett, is very influential and is hoping to be the governor of the Anti-Vice Committee. Birdie is unimpressed with this paragon of virtue and lets Frances do the sucking up, instead she puts her energy into the disgusting room she’s working in alongside one of the orphans, Meg. As far as Birdie can see, Meg is in this room by herself every day away from the other girls. She has nothing to read. The walls are mouldy and she’s not allowed to open the window. She’d think it was a punishment, but Meg doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong. With an attentive adult to clean and paint the room, let the air in and ask her interesting questions Meg starts to blossom, much to Mrs Garnett’s consternation. Birdie can find solutions to most problems and is enjoying her time with Meg, but the Tartt’s troubles loom and Birdie will have to come up with a creative way to help. When she meets Charlie, a woman broken down by the system and longing to get her child back, they make a formidable team. 

I absolutely loved Birdie, the sensible person between an anxious mother who thinks the price of canned peaches will put the family over the edge and a sister who is willing to spend every penny they have if it makes her pretty. She is pragmatic, knowing she’s not a beauty she decided she would have to look after herself and got a job bookkeeping at the local store. Frances didn’t even invite her family to her wedding, scared of being found out as poor. Birdie doesn’t believe in trying to be what you’re not and she’s utterly herself which I loved. She’s sensible but also has a loathing of injustice. She has her own moral compass that is based on the Bible, common sense and kindness. She doesn’t believe in people that set themselves up as good in a performative way, just be good because it’s the right thing to do. Meg was fascinating and her story is so deeply sad. She believes her mother left her one Christmas Eve and never came back, so she had to survive on what was in the house until the local doctor found her. She’s absolutely starving for books and learning, even sneaking a Life magazine she finds in the cupboard and gorging on it like a cream cake. She has to some extent accepted her treatment at the orphanage, never expecting to be chosen as one of the eldest there. I found myself hoping Birdie might adopt her, they certainly have an instant affinity. I loved Meg’s sense of humour too, especially when she relates an adoption letter received that states: 

“We need us an older girl, on account of I was chopping cotton and it was hot out and the blade swung out my hand and sliced my wife’s arm clean off so we had a proper funeral for it but she cannot lift a pot now.”

As Meg observes, they had a funeral for an arm? That’s quite a letter. It has people, action and weather, with a bit of gore for interest. She’s a girl with so much to say and no outlet at all. It’s a whole lot different than life with her mum who was a feminist and clearly loves her daughter. She celebrated when Meg was placed in the ‘exceptional learners’ and tells her to remember that most men are placed in the slow learners category. Where could this woman have gone?

The themes in this are very much like The Help, injustice, inequality, the strength of women and what we’ll do to survive. In addition there’s the rise of the eugenics movement in America, something I researched at university and when preparing for my PhD. Eugenics supposes there is a master race, that white able-bodied heterosexuals with European origins are superior. This is such an important topic when we see what’s going on in the US today and when The Sanctuary exists in London – a destination that stays out of the press, but launched the Restore party, houses a eugenics magazine and race scientists. People forget that Germany didn’t start this lean towards wanting a superior race. Birdie finds out that Mrs Garnett’s policies for the Anti-Vice group include eugenic thinking such as imbeciles will give birth to more imbeciles, some ethnic groups should be prevented from having more children and that others should be forced onto contraception from a very young age, especially girls from poor, black families. It’s an evil that’s never really gone away, especially in America where some of these measures were still happening in the 1970s. These policies made it easy to get inconvenient people out of the way, just like Meg’s mum whose story brought me to tears. Birdie starts to realise that doing something considered immoral by society might be the best way to survive and she has to weigh it up in her own mind.

There was just so much I want to say about this book and I’ve had to stop myself rambling! Kathryn Stockett has done it again. I can see this on the big screen and it will be brilliant. It also has the added bonus of chatter about merkins at the breakfast table, which made me laugh out loud. I fell in love with Meg and Birdie, but also the women who form a team to get Birdie’s in-laws out of the mess they’re in. This book has so much to say about female strength, friendship and adaptability in terrible circumstances. Every character is so well drawn I could see them. I know a lot about eugenics and its history in the US and this is an important book right now, going against where Christian Nationalist policy is taking the country. It shows the damage that can be done when someone lives the rigid rules of manmade religion rather than the actual message of love given in the Bible. Often those who want the appearance of goodness most, will do anything to keep it. Birdie finds that friendship and loyalty can be found in the most unusual circumstances and with people you never expected. There’s tragedy and brutality but also lightness, humour and so much love. Utterly brilliant!

Out now from Penguin Books

Meet the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. The Calamity Club is her second novel.

Posted in Netgalley

The Jewel Keepers by Sara Sheridan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Men would kill for this treasure.

The McKenzie women will guard it with their lives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out on 14th May from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

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

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

Posted in Publisher Proof

Elizabeth and Marilyn by Julie Owen Moylan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

London, October, 1956. A glittering Royal Film Premiere. The whole world is watching . . . 

Tonight, Elizabeth II will formally greet an array of stars. Though she was not born to be Queen, this young mother and wife has embraced her patriotic duty and its unforgiving demands.

A limousine pulls up. Out steps a vision in dazzling gold: Marilyn Monroe. A money-making machine for Hollywood, with curves that drive men wild and a smile that lets women know she’s in on the joke. 

As the two most famous women in the world come face to face, they look to be worlds apart. Yet beneath the glamorous costumes, both are fighting to keep the men they love, while trying to do their work in a man’s world. And they have spent the summer of 1956 battling secret demons the public could never imagine. 

Now, Marilyn steps forward. These photographs will be on the front page of every newspaper in the morning. 

But this isn’t their first meeting. And the story behind the headlines is even more sensational . . .

As soon as I knew that Julie’s next novel was going to feature these two women I was intrigued, because until now the comparison between Hollywood stars and our royal family has been Marilyn and Diana, Princess of Wales. Both were globally famous, incredibly beautiful, hounded by the press and died far too young. This comparison was compounded when Elton John rewrote Candle in the Wind, formerly about Marilyn Monroe, for the late Princess of Wales and played it at her funeral. I was around eight years old when Diana came into public view and I was obsessed for a couple of years with her beautiful dresses and how glamorous it all was, but of course as I grew older her story became more complex and tragic. I think my initial intrigue was due to my age, because to me Queen Elizabeth had always seemed old. This was partly to do with her style I think, but she was in her early fifties (as I am now) when I was taken to the bridge that crosses the River Trent in Keadby, North Lincolnshire to see her car pass by in the silver jubilee year of 1977. I was three and being around for 50 years seemed a million miles away. However, this book focuses on 1956 when the Queen was still a young woman in her twenties and experiencing a very turbulent year. She hadn’t had time to fully settle into her role, she’d had to advise her own sister that she couldn’t marry the man she loved if she wished to remain a princess and her relationship with Prince Phillip had it’s problems. Marilyn was in London to film The Prince and the Showgirl opposite one of our most acclaimed actors, Laurence Olivier. She too was coming into a turbulent phase of her life, after spending some time living in Manhattan and studying the acting ‘method’ theorised by Stanislavski and taught by Strasberg. The idea was to act in a natural way, experiencing what the character is going through, to bring personal emotion and past trauma into the scene, or even stay in character between scenes to keep the intensity in your performance. This was going to prove entirely at odds with Olivier’s way of working. She was also recently married to playwright Arthur Miller, making headlines around the world as the ‘egghead and the hourglass’. The couple came to London in lieu of a honeymoon and were living in a house situated next to the Windsor Castle estate so for a while, the two women were neighbours. The author has taken this background and created a fascinating story about stratospheric levels of fame, how women are treated in the media, and the difficulty of negotiating the line between public and private. 

Each woman has their own narrative and we’re taken inside their deepest fears and emotions. This is incredibly difficult to do with such famous subjects because both women are so iconic and we all have an idea in our heads of what they were like and who they were. I found I couldn’t come to them as new characters straight away, but I did find each woman’s inner voice convincing and engaging. This approach means we get to experience each woman in three different ways: the public face; the private face; and their innermost thoughts. Each has an insecurity about their relationship. Marilyn feels that Arthur does see the real her underneath the persona but fears that he will find the press, the attention from other men and her role as Marilyn Monroe too taxing. Where they would have liked a cute little cottage away from it all to spend their honeymoon alone, they have a huge house with staff and constant requests for photo opportunities. Will Arthur always accept that his wife frequently has to switch Marilyn on? The Queen has had two children with Prince Phillip and now has a very busy public role, while his own is largely undefined. This has left him racketing around town with his Private Secretary Michael, attended a gentleman’s club which has a whiff of scandal about it. The Prince seems very aware of the duality of his wife, but being the Queen means playing that role even within her own family at times. There’s the recent unhappiness with Princess Margaret where Elizabeth the sister wanted to grant her wish to marry Group Captain Pete Townsend, but Elizabeth the Queen couldn’t. Prince Phillip refers to her “Queen Face” and she employs it as a shield so nobody knows what she’s thinking or for when she has to deliver news that family members might dislike. When scandal rears it’s head, the Queen has to think every carefully about how she handles her husband but first and foremost she must protect the crown. Will her relationship suffer because of this? 

Marilyn’s excitement about her new film is tempered by the tone as soon as she arrives to meet Laurence Olivier and his wife, Vivien Leigh. It seems Leigh has played this role on stage and perhaps hoped to be in the film? It’s hard to read how eager Marilyn is to be with these revered British actors who she sees as the real deal. There’s an incident with Dame Sybil Thorndike at the read through that really does reinforce Marilyn’s ability to switch her star power on and off. It’s a defence mechanism to cover her natural shyness, but also a response to her childhood experiences. It’s clear when she’s bullied on set, her response comes from trauma – the muteness, the stammering and getting her lines wrong. Her past experiences are devastating and we can see them playing out in her work and her relationship with Miller, who she calls ‘Pa’ in private. The author poses the dilemma of each woman being much more famous than their husband and worrying about how to negotiate that imbalance. Marilyn is constantly placed in the middle by the press and her commitments to the film, meaning she’s forced to switch Marilyn on even in private events like a party. Can Miller accept this duality and the constant demands on her time while still seeing the real her? If the Queen makes the decision to act in the way her courtiers advise will Phillip forgive her? If only these women could have known what the other was going through – how impossible it is to be a wife, or a sister and also be a global icon. It made me think of the Queen in a new light and I wondered whether she ever thought of her younger experiences when Diana was globally famous. This is a really interesting read, shedding light on a fascinating time and showing how impossible it is to please everyone, something most women find particularly hard. I was moved by something attributed to the Queen: 

“I want to be something constant to people – beaming out a little ray of light that provides a sort of normality. A kind of ‘if she’s still there doing her duty, then all will be well”

I think she achieved this because her death felt seismic and I think as a country we’ve been all at sea since she died. While politics were in turmoil the Queen was a constant for every generation since my mum who was born in 1953 and also has pictures of Marilyn in her bedroom. Both women have a legacy but only one got to live out her life in full, both publicly and privately. This is a beautifully judged piece of modern historical fiction, getting underneath the skin of women we feel like we knew well but perhaps didn’t know at all. The book goes beyond the facts and lets us wonder how these women could have had insights into each other’s lives. With all the research and sensitivity I’ve come to expect from this author, she has once again captured the mid-20th Century perfectly while also showing us that our modern preoccupations with image and celebrity are perhaps not as new as we thought.

Out Now from Penguin

Meet the Author

Julie Owen Moylan is the author of three novels: That Green Eyed Girl, 73 Dove Street and Circus of Mirrors.

Her debut novel That Green Eyed Girl was a Waterstones’ Welsh Book of the Month and the official runner up for the prestigious Paul Torday Memorial Prize. It was also shortlisted for Best Debut at the Fingerprint Awards and featured at the Hay Festival as one of its TEN AT TEN debuts.

73 Dove Street was recently named as a Waterstones’ Book of the Year and Daily Mail Historical Fiction Book of the Year with the paperback a Waterstones Welsh Book of the month in 2024.

Her writing and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications including Sunday Express, The Independent, New Welsh Review and Good Housekeeping.

Elizabeth and Marilyn will be released in April 2026.

Posted in Netgalley

The Repentants by Kate Foster 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

St Monans, Fife, Scotland 1790. Two women are forced to publicly repent in church, one for adultery the other for breaching the sabbath. Wealthy housewife, Florrie, and salt serf, Eliza, form a quick and unusual bond over their mutual humiliation. So when Florrie’s husband decides she must accompany him on a trade venture to Iceland, she insists Eliza comes as her maid.

Far from home, isolated and fearful, the two women grow ever closer. Then Florrie’s husband reveals his sinister plan: he will leave her in Iceland, banished for the shame she has cast upon him. Florrie must escape, but when she turns to Eliza for help she realizes nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Inspired by an attempt by Scottish merchants to annex Iceland as a remote prison for the British Empire, The Repentants is a chilling tale of betrayal, exile and survival

Florrie feels neglected. She has a lovely home, a husband who has inherited a salt works run by several generations of his family and an inheritance of her own as soon as she turns 21. Her husband Jonny has been struggling the burns he incurred by running into fire at work to make sure the building was clear. Florrie knows there is more to marriage than she and Jonny share even before the injury, particularly in the bedroom where he takes no care for her pleasure at all. This restlessness has drives her to back door of the Mermaid Inn in her most alluring dress. Inside and up the back stairs is a room where an Icelandic sailor is waiting for her. For a blissful moment Florrie is finally experiencing something, when the door is flung open and she is discovered. While there’s no criminal punishment for adultery, religion is important in this Scottish community and the minister at the kirk is keen on shaming his penitents. Florrie becomes one of the repentants, wearing sack cloth and standing in front of the congregation facing her neighbours and everything they think about her. It’s humiliating for her and for her husband, so when Jonny lets her know about his plan to spend some months in Iceland she sees it as an escape. With the Icelandic contacts he was introduced to at his gentleman’s club he plans to set up another salt works. However, instead of the serfs he owns in Scotland, the plan is for a ship full of local convicts to serve their hard labour sentences in the salt works. Florrie is determined to go and requests the company of a salt serf called Eliza who was a repentant on the same day. She asks Eliza to be her lady’s maid, but in truth Eliza has no choice since she was signed up as a serf to Jonny’s family as soon as she was born. Underneath the surface though she has spirit and is fiercely independent. With two restless women and a man determined to indenture others for monetary gain, this trip may bring more than any of them expect. 

The story is told from the perspective of three women: Florrie, Eliza and Hallgerd – a woman who is their neighbour in Iceland. Florrie’s narration comes from her journal and there are letters here and there too. What these women share is their experience of misogyny from men who think they have the right to control women through marriage, religion, slavery or just because they believe they have the right to do whatever they want, when they want. Eliza has largely avoided men back home, she lived alone and her repentance was for missing kirk two Sundays in a row. She doesn’t care much what the congregation think of her, because she’s well aware of the hypocrisy of church people. She can’t really be lower in their estimation anyway. As the story unfolds we realise what she’s been doing to survive and who is willing to exploit that knowledge. She was my favourite character because of her inner strength and determination to survive. At the kirk, when she’s asked if she’s scared of the devil she shows her defiance and understanding of her situation: “the devil does not frighten me minister. but men do”. Once she has a plan, she will never tolerate being manipulated, restricted or punished again. Florrie realises as soon as they reach Iceland that this is not going to be an easy way of life and definitely not the standard she had back home. In her journal she reminisces about that morning at the inn where for a brief time she felt desired: 

“The most vivid memory, the one where I am astride him and we are going at it for the second time, pure bliss, I was right.” 

However, her journal isn’t the safe space she thinks it is, her mother read it when she lived at home, Jonny reads it now and he makes sure that others do too. Florrie remembers that beautiful pink dress too, the one that the dressmaker’s assistant said was “whorish”, and its matching wrapper that got lost at the inn. The third repentant that Sunday was a lady called Auld Beatrice and she was there for being a nag. She recognises something in Florrie and warns her to develop her inner life and skills: 

“I hope you are not too reliant on those looks of yours. A woman needs to be resourceful. Or years from now, when you are my age and miserable at how your looks have slid, you will regret not having any other skills.” 

Between Eliza and Beatrice, Florrie gets the message to shrug off shame and realise that she’s only being treated like this because men like to assert their power over women. Deep down Florrie is furious with herself, she’s angry with Jonny for professing such love for her before their marriage then withdrawing it afterwards, but she’s angrier with herself for believing it. Now their home is a small cottage, the weather is bitter and there’s literally nothing – no shops, church, clubs for entertainment. Reykjavik is a busier place but still has only one two storey house that Jonny’s contacts have commandeered as the headquarters of their operation. It was originally the home of Hallgerd their neighbour. She has so many memories of her childhood in that home and hates seeing it used by a man who wants to show his power by having the best house in town. She is surviving alone, while her husband takes jobs on sailing ships and chooses where he sleeps. I loved the blunt and honest way these women talked to each other, fully aware they are the equal of men but having to find ways around their assumed power. It felt like the women and Iceland had many things in common. After stopping over in Copenhagen which is a bustling port, Iceland is a shock to the system. It feels vast and unknowable, but men still think they can use it, tame it and exploit it for profit. Hallgerd is part of the land, she knows it and the power it holds underneath the surface, she can even feel it in her body when a volcano is ready to erupt. The sailors align women with strange abilities, they are scared to have Eliza and Florrie on their ship and give them a bleeding cure in case their menstrual blood attracts sea serpents. It made my blood boil that it was the men who were terrified of a natural process, but it was the women who had to bear the responsibility for that fear. I was reminded so strongly of the Coventry Patmore poem The Angel in the House: 

“A woman is a foreign land

Of which though there he settle young, 

A man will ne’er quite understand 

The custom, politics and tongue.” 

It also reminded me of a recent conversation on X where a man said ‘ I don’t trust something that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die’. Men still fear us and policy is being made on the basis of that fear and the urge to control us. I was hoping that all the women, especially Eliza, would see that the men’s suspicion and fear is the female superpower and she could use it to escape and flourish. Kate Foster has become a must-buy author for me over her four novels because her female characters are so layered and there’s a firm feminist stance as she writes these fascinating characters back into history. She doesn’t just concentrate on one class either, giving us both working and wealthy women and the difference that makes to their journey through life. Most of all her stories grab hold of the reader and are absolutely full of atmosphere. I’ve no doubt she has another hit on her hands with this novel. 

Out 28th May from Mantle Books

Posted in Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Books About Mediums and Fortune Tellers

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending séances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones.

William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him – seemingly from beyond the veil – placing doubt in his heart and a seed of obsession in his mind. Could the spirits truly be communicating with him or is this one of Kathleen’s parlour tricks gone too far?

Based on the true story of Professor William Jackson Crawford and famed medium Kathleen Goligher, and with a cast of characters including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, The Spirit Engineer conjures a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia and one ultimate, inescapable truth… I found this atmospheric, mysterious and completely fascinating.

Paris, 1866. When Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a house-call from Charlotte Mothe, the sister she disowned, she fears her shady past as a spirit medium has caught up with her. But with their father ill and Charlotte unable to pay his bills, Sylvie is persuaded into one last con.

Their marks are the de Jacquinots: dysfunctional aristocrats who believe they are haunted by their great aunt, brutally murdered during the French Revolution.

Sylvie and Charlotte will need to deploy every trick to terrify the family out of their gold – until they experience inexplicable horrors themselves.

The sisters start to question if they really are at the mercy of a vengeful spirit. And what other deep, dark secrets threaten to come to light…? I loved the genuinely scary scenes in this novel, the setting and the differences between these two sisters.

‘Now you know why you are drawn to me – why your flesh comes creeping to mine, and what it comes for. Let it creep.’ 

Visiting a grim London prison as part of rehabilitative charity work, upper-class suicide survivor Margaret Prior is drawn into the Victorian world of enigmatic spiritualist and inmate Selina Dawes and is persuaded to help her escape.

From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? By the time it all begins to matter, you’ll find yourself desperately wanting to believe in magic. I love Sarah Waters and the way she writes LGBTQ+ characters back into history, this brought to life the reality of a women’s prison and how class determines women’s lives as much as gender. This was unsettling and like a great thriller you’re never quite sure who is being honest and who is manipulating the outcome.

In the slums of 19th-century New York.

A tattooed mystic fights for her life.

Her survival hangs on the turn of a tarot card.

Powerful, intoxicating and full of suspense. *The Knowing* is a darkly
spellbinding novel about a girl fighting for her survival in the decaying
criminal underworlds.

Whilst working as a living canvas for an abusive tattoo artist, Flora meets Minnie, an enigmatic circus performer who offers her love and refuge in an opulent townhouse, home to the menacing Mr Chester Merton. Flora earns her keep reading tarot cards for his guests whilst struggling to harness her gift, the Knowing – an ability to summon the dead. Caught in a dark love triangle between Minnie and Chester, Flora begins to unravel the secrets inside their house. Then at her first public séance, Flora hears the spirit of a murdered boy prostitute and exposes his killer, setting off a train of events which put her life at risk. This is a fabulous debut novel full of colourful historical detail and showcasing an utterly alternative 19th Century existence.

Viola has an impossible talent. Searching for meaning in her grief, she uses her photography to feel closer to her late father, taking solace from the skills he taught her – and to keep her distance from her husband. But her pictures seem to capture things invisible to the eye . . .

Henriette is a celebrated spirit medium, carrying nothing but her secrets with her as she travels the country. When she meets Viola, a powerful connection is sparked between them – but Victorian society is no place for reckless women.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, invisible threads join Viola and Henriette to another woman who lives in secrecy, hiding her dangerous act of rebellion in plain sight. I was incredibly moved by this story of transgressive love and the fascinating world of spirit photography. Viola has all the naivety of a daughter brought up with religion and it takes Henriette’s boldness for her to try new experiences. I loved the author/‘s use of liminal spaces as places of freedom and how found family can allow that freedom to grow.

England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly re-married and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction.

She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to recreate the evening. 

When a mysterious child appears on the grounds, Louisa finds herself compelled to investigate and becomes embroiled in the strange happenings of the house. Gradually, she unravels the long-held secrets of the inhabitants and what really happened thirty years before… and discovers her own fate is entwined with that of Clewer Hall’s. This is the perfect book if you enjoy gothic mystery, historical detail and very spooky twists and turns.

Alison Hart, a medium by trade, tours the dormitory towns of London’s orbital ring road with her flint-hearted sidekick, Colette, passing on messages from beloved dead ancestors. But behind her plump, smiling persona hides a desperate woman: she knows the terrors the next life holds but must conceal them from her wide-eyed clients. At the same time she is plagued by spirits from her own past, who infiltrate her body and home, becoming stronger and nastier the more she resists…

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, Hilary Mantel’s supremely suspenseful novel is a masterpiece of dark humour and even darker secrets. This ghostly story is full of menace but also very dark humour. It’s endlessly inventive with all the atmosphere you’d expect from this incredible writer.

How do you solve an unsolvable murder? Ask the victim…

In January 1986, newly-engaged Marnie Driscoll is found dead in her parents’ kitchen. With no witnesses, it seems as though the circumstances of her death will remain a mystery.

Six months later, high-flying Detective Inspector Andrew Joyce’s career takes an unexpected detour when he finds himself unwillingly transferred to an obscure department within Greater Manchester Police, known as the Ballroom. The Ballroom team employs unorthodox methods to crack previously unsolved cases, and Joyce, a sceptic by nature, must find a way to work with Peggy Swan, a reclusive ex-socialite with a unique talent: she can communicate with the dead.

Joyce soon discovers that Marnie’s death, initially dismissed as an opportunistic act of violence, actually seems to be a carefully orchestrated murder. It will take both Joyce’s skill as an investigator and Peggy’s connection to her new ghostly charge to navigate the web of secrets surrounding the case and bring closure to Marnie’s tragic story before the killer can strike again. I love this series, with the author recently releasing the third in the series. This has Northern wit, gritty crime and an exceptional character in Marnie. Apart from Marnie these ghostly goings on are sinister and dark in places, so when added to a new DI with family secrets it really does compel you to read on.

When the women in the Sparrow family reach thirteen, they develop a unique ability. In young Stella’s case, the gift, which is both a blessing and a curse, is the ability to see a person’s probable future. Stella foresees a gruesome murder, and tells her charming, feckless father about it, but it is too late – the murder has already been committed and suspicion falls on him. 

Hoffman unlocks the caskets of family life and the secret history of a community in this magical story about young love and old love, about making choices – usually the wrong ones – about foresight and consequences, all suffused with the haunting scent of roses and wisteria, and the hum of bees on a summer evening. I love the way Hoffman combines mundane every day life with magical events so skilfully you never question it. She draws you into these lives and her setting with all the enchantment of a fairy tale.

A grieving woman . . .
Yorkshire, 1890. Forced to exchange her childhood home for her uncle’s vicarage after a tragic loss, Olwen Malkon finds herself trapped between her aunt’s cruelty and the sinister advances of her cousin.

A troubled past . . .
When Olwen finds herself afflicted by strange dreams of a woman from a distant past, whose fate is overshadowed by menace and betrayal, those around her are determined to dismiss them as hysteria – except the local doctor, John, with whom she develops a connection.

A long-buried secret . . .
As the visions intensify, they begin to mirror reality, threatening to expose chilling secrets. What dangers lie ahead for Olwen, and does the past hold the key to her own future…?

This is the perfect mix of history and the supernatural as the character’s become connected through time. Olwen’s troubled present seems to change her into a conduit for an Anglo-Saxon woman, but her new power to see the past leads to concerns for her welfare in the present. This is really engaging and absorbed me completely.

Posted in Netgalley

Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out Now from Atlantic Books

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up, Uncategorized

Best Reads March 2026

Posted on by thelotusreaders

So it turns out that March is the month of mysteries and thrillers, suspense, plot twists and secrets aplenty! These are my favourites from the month and although I haven’t managed full reviews for some of them, these are my favourites. Wishing you all a Happy Easter weekend, hope you get some good reading and relaxation time with some treats. ❤️📚 🐇

St Monans, Fife, Scotland 1790. Two women are forced to publicly repent in church, one for adultery the other for breaching the sabbath. Wealthy housewife, Florrie, and salt serf, Eliza, form a quick and unusual bond over their mutual humiliation. So when Florrie’s husband decides she must accompany him on a trade venture to Iceland, she insists Eliza comes as her maid.

Far from home, isolated and fearful, the two women grow ever closer. Then Florrie’s husband reveals his sinister plan: he will leave her in Iceland, banished for the shame she has cast upon him. Florrie must escape, but when she turns to Eliza for help she realizes nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Based on the true story of the British Empire trying to annex Iceland as a penal colony, this books tells us about subjugation and control of women by husbands, serf owners, and ministers. Kate Foster always has strong female characters and Florrie, Eliza and Hallgerd are no exception. This was a historical thriller, full of suspense and with a few plot twists too. It’s about what happens when women reject the shame men and society say they should feel and embrace their transgressions, using them as a stepping stone to true freedom. My full review is coming up soon.

Twelve years ago, Carrie married Johan on a beach in Thailand. But as the sun set on their perfect day, armed men swarmed the island and her husband was taken, never to be seen again.

Carrie is now happily remarried; a mother of two. The past is firmly behind her – until she stumbles across Johan by accident online. He is alive and well.

As the memories of their passionate relationship flood back, Carrie is compelled to find out what happened on that beach, and why Johan never got in contact.

The man who promised her a lifetime of love is now a mystery she must solve. But are the answers worth risking her marriage, her family, and the life she fought so hard to rebuild?

The truth, it turns out, is more shocking than any lie . . .

I read this novel on my weekend away and became absolutely absorbed in the story, a love story that’s also a mystery. It’s heartbreaking, romantic but also sinister and unsettling. Our main character, Carrie Cole, has been a brilliant surgeon but gave up when she had very premature twins and felt the need to be at home with them. She lives with her husband Robin in an old cottage with a holiday let in the old piggery next door that they let through the Roof app. It’s there that she sees Johan again for the first time since his arrest in Thailand. Her urge to see him is part emotional but also a desperate need to know what happened and how he ended up back home in Sweden when he should still be in prison. I loved how the author played with our expectations of who to trust and whether Carrie should think with her heart or head. She’s safe, she’s happily married, she’s a mother about to return to work so we know the right choice to make. Right? Full review coming later in the month.

Famed children’s author Dame Eleanor Kingman has summoned her family and friends to her exquisite manor house on the cliffs. They’re celebrating her birthday – and her latest number one bestseller in her series of books based on a mother fox and her cubs.

But the night before the party, Eleanor receives an email: an email that threatens to expose the lie she’s kept up for over half a century.

Someone knows her secret. Is it her estranged literary agent? Is it her ex-husband, to whom she no longer speaks? Is it the nanny she fired all those years ago, who always did have a knack for storytelling? Or is it one of her three daughters, all of whom have a stake in the publishing empire she has built…

With a TV crew arriving to film a documentary of her life, Eleanor needs to find out who sent the email – and preserve her multimillion-pound career.

But when push comes to shove, and it’s time to tell the truth – will anyone actually believe her?

This was a brilliant thriller from Sarah Vaughan, based around a wealthy and respected children’s author and her birthday party. There’s enough tension in the air already with an event so big, but Eleanor’s three daughters each have secrets, her illustrator has turned up early for a confrontation about her percentage, there’s an odd man hanging around the grounds who approached her grandchildren and dog, plus an old couple who have apparently lost their way from their caravan park into the gardens. Told in the tense two days before the celebrations, we also get flashbacks to key moments in Eleanor’s past that might give us the answers. You’ll absolutely devour this book like I did.

When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, the city reels – and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with her murder.

As their trial begins and headlines scream for justice, rumours of bullying spiral into something darker: whispers of rituals, obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong.

But then the girls take the stand – revealing a chilling defence no one saw coming – and the jury must question everything: the motives, the evidence, even their own judgement.

Who’s telling the truth? Who can be trusted?
And what really happened to Christian Shaw?

Let the Witch Trial begin . . .

Harriet Tyce’s brain works differently to other people’s! We follow the trial of two teenage girls through the eyes of a juror called Matthew who is a surgeon. He’s everything a good juror should be – reliable, intelligent, rational, objective, pillar of the community – but he seems strangely excited about this trial, having been told several times he could have been excused because of his job. As the trial moves on he seems to deteriorate: he stops wearing a shirt and tie, has a rash that spreads and irritates him, starts to drink and eat junk food. The story of witchcraft and teenage girls is intriguing, but does it constitute murder? Who is the blonde woman that catches Matthew’s eye and seems to follow him to the flat? There are so many layers to this story that your mind will be blown in the final chapters!

Ten years ago, Hope left Somerset with a fatal secret and a broken heart. She has spent a decade in the shadows, living a quiet life of penance to protect the man she once loved – the world-famous author Ambrose Glencourt.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

Then, she opens his latest bestseller. To the world, it’s a brilliant work of fiction. To Hope, it’s a betrayal. Every private moment, every dark truth, and every ‘fatal disaster’ from that summer is laid bare on the page.

YOUR TRUTH IS A LIE.

But Ambrose has changed the ending. In his version of the story, Hope isn’t the victim. She’s the villain.

Now, Hope must step out of the shadows to reclaim her narrative. But in a world of glamorous elites and whispered secrets, who will believe the word of an unreliable woman against the word of a literary icon?

Two narrators. One truth. And a secret worth killing for.

This novel is another triumph for this incredible writer, with so many layers and very timely themes around rich white men and their assumption of their own genius and their right to exploit those around them. Hope is a compelling character whose one summer with Ambrose and his wife Delia sets her life on a different course. To find the events of that summer in a book, prompts her to go to the police and tell her story to detective Nat. Is this the ramblings of a mad, middle aged woman or is something very wrong at Shadowlands, the Glencourt’s mansion. Hall beautifully shows us young love and how a girl who loves books can be manipulated by someone who believes young, naive lower class girls who worship writers are theirs for the taking. I love how Hall weaves in the concept of playing with reality, how we construct stories and who has the right to tell them.

There’s something out there in the darkness.
By morning, bones lie in the snow, picked clean.

Zach knows the moods of the mountains – his mother taught him before she was gone. His father and the other men on the ski weekend think they know better though.

Drinking and boasting, they laugh in the face of the icy conditions.

But Zach understands what danger looks like. Can he survive the wilderness, and all the monsters within it?

This is a stunning new novel from Tracy Sierra, whose debut novel NightWatching was one of my favourite books of 2024. This is just as good as that thrilling debut, if not better. Set in one weekend in the mountains, this is no ordinary trip or boy’s own adventure. Everyone who is coming is there to be impressed by Zach’s dad and his latest business venture. Everything has to go right. Everything is told through Zach’s eyes and we can see him slowly lose his innocence as he notices that his dad doesn’t have half the knowledge about the outdoors that his mother had, everyone else can see that all his gear is new, flash and not what a regular skier or hiker would use. Zach can also see they dislike him. Russ is the only other kid on the trip and he knows that these men are going to lead them into danger, simply because they’re selfish and full of bravado. They must get to do exactly what they want and damn the consequences. Tracy Sierra gets inside this little boy’s mind perfectly and I was desperate for him to survive, but with a strange monster on the prowl outside and the terrible weather it’s hard to know what he can do to escape. Unless the real danger is on the inside. This author shows shades of Stephen King and The Shining in this brilliant story, bristling with menace and childhood fears.

Here are a few of next months reads: