Tag: Identity

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight – The Perfect Society: Novels About Eugenics

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Eugenics is described by National Human Genome Research Institute as

“an immoral and pseudoscientific theory that claims it is possible to perfect people and groups through genetics and the scientific laws of inheritance”.

It’s a word that’s been floating around social media for some time, mainly in connection to those behind the new US administration. There are concerns that people with physical disabilities, those of different ethnic origins and those with mental ill health or learning disabilities, might be considered less desirable in society. There are people with disabilities fighting against the introduction of assisted dying, because it could be interpreted to mean disabled lives have less value. We’ve all probably asked at one time or another, how could ordinary German citizens sleep walk into the Final Solution? The answer is slowly. There is evidence that children with disabilities were being removed and institutionalised as early as 1933. We like to think the Holocaust couldn’t happen again, but there is evidence of eugenic policies affecting the lives of ordinary Americans until the 1970s. Of course the Nazis are the ultimate and extreme example of eugenic policies being enacted, but both European countries and the US were using eugenicist policies on their own citizens across the 20th Century. This is what happens when we demonise the disabled, the poor and the destitute. The rise of the far right across the world is driven by eugenicist thinking, that some people are inherently better than others. This is why eugenicist policies affected those with learning difficulties, Native Americans, African Americans and people with long term disabilities. I try not to be political on the blog, but here I’m not advocating particular political parties. All I want to do is share novels that show how eugenics affected real communities and individuals.

From the outside, Eleanor and Edward Hamilton have the perfect life, but they’re harbouring a secret that threatens to fracture their entire world. 


London, 1929. 
Eleanor Hamilton is a dutiful mother, a caring sister and an adoring wife to a celebrated war hero. Her husband, Edward, is a pioneer in the eugenics movement. The Hamiltons are on the social rise, and it looks as though their future is bright. When Mabel, their young daughter, begins to develop debilitating seizures, they have to face an uncomfortable truth: Mabel has epilepsy – one of the ‘undesirable’ conditions that Edward campaigns against. Forced to hide their daughter away so as to not jeopardise Edward’s life’s work, the couple must confront the truth of their past – and the secrets that have been buried. Will Eleanor and Edward be able to fight for their family? Or will the truth destroy them? 

Many will have read this heart-rending novel or seen the film, beautifully performed by Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightly. This perfectly encapsulates that head in the sand mindset humans are so good at. We can ignore terrible injustices when they’re not happening to us, or people like us. We can always think it doesn’t apply to us. Until it does. Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life and is utterly terrifying.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good House, the story of two friends, raised in the same orphanage, whose loyalty is put to the ultimate test when they meet years later at a controversial institution—one as an employee; the other, an inmate.

It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work as a secretary at a remote but scenic institution for mentally disabled women called the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. She’s immediately in awe of her employer—brilliant, genteel Dr. Agnes Vogel. Dr. Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women’s suffrage. Now, at age forty, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary deeply admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women under her care. 

Soon after she’s hired, Mary learns that a girl from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates. Mary remembers Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes-tempestuous side. Could she be mentally disabled? When Lillian begs Mary to help her escape, alleging the asylum is not what it seems, Mary is faced with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret? Mary’s decision triggers a hair-raising sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all. Inspired by a true story about the author’s grandmother, The Foundling offers a rare look at a shocking chapter of American history. This gripping page-turner will have readers on the edge of their seats right up to the stunning last page…asking themselves, “Did this really happen here?”

Since the death of his fiancée Aimee, Ross Wakeman has been unable to fill the hole she has left in his life. Seeking to end his pain, he becomes a ghost hunter, despite never having seen a ghost.

However, when his job leads him to the town of Comtosook, it becomes apparent that Ross isn’t the only one haunted by the past. When he meets the mysterious Lia, who brings him to life for the first time in years, redemption seems around the corner. But the discoveries that await him are beyond anything he could dream of – in this world or the next. Second Glance takes a look at how American eugenicist policies affected the lives of Native Americans with a programme of sterilisation. It’s not her usual court based drama, but still has her themes of injustice, identity and a lesser known part of American history.

Montgomery, Alabama. 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference in her community. She wants to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a tumbledown cabin and into the heart of the Williams family, Civil learns there is more to her new role than she bargained for. Neither of the two young sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling their welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have them on birth control. When Civil discovers a terrible injustice, she must choose between carrying out instructions or following her heart and decides to risk everything to stand up for what is right.

Inspired by true events and a shocking chapter of recent history, Take My Hand is a novel that will open your eyes and break your heart. An unforgettable story about love and courage, it is also a timely and uplifting reminder that one person can change the world.


1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows, there is a ballroom vast and beautiful. For one bright evening every week they come together and dance. When John and Ella meet it is a dance that will change two lives forever.

Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM tells a rivetting tale of dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which. It is a love story like no other, showing how eugenics affected those deemed mentally ill.

In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it’s 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling. 

One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program. 

The Sunflower House is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel from Adriana Allegri that uncovers the notorious Lebensborn Program of Nazi Germany. Women of “pure” blood stayed in Lebensborn homes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to thousands of babies who were adopted out to “good” Nazi families. Allina must keep her Jewish identity a secret in order to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she’s determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care. 

A tale of one woman’s determination to resist and survive, The Sunflower House is also a love story. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other—and how much they can stand to risk as they join forces to save as many children as they can. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.

In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope.

When Lena Conti—a young, unwed mother—sees immigrant families being forcibly separated on Ellis Island, she vows not to let the officers take her two-year old daughter. But the inspection process is more rigorous than she imagined, and she is separated from her mother and teenage brother, who are labeled burdens to society, denied entry, and deported back to Germany. Now, alone but determined to give her daughter a better life after years of living in poverty and near starvation, she finds herself facing a future unlike anything she had envisioned.

Silas Wolfe, a widowed family relative, reluctantly brings Lena and her daughter to his weathered cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to care for his home and children. Though the hills around Wolfe Hollow remind Lena of her homeland, she struggles to adjust. Worse, she is stunned to learn the children in her care have been taught to hide when the sheriff comes around. As Lena meets their neighbors, she realizes the community is vibrant and tight knit, but also senses growing unease. The State of Virginia is scheming to paint them as ignorant, immoral, and backwards so they can evict them from their land, seize children from parents, and deal with those possessing “inferior genes.”

After a social worker from the Eugenics Office accuses Lena of promiscuity and feeblemindedness, her own worst fears come true. Sent to the Virginia State Colony for the Feebleminded and Epileptics, Lena face impossible choices in hopes of reuniting with her daughter—and protecting the people, and the land, she has grown to love.

If you want to read more background on eugenics here are a few links:

https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/timelines/eugenics

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/blue-plaque-stories/eugenics/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/magazine/eugenics-movement-america.html

Posted in Netgalley

Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Seer. Sage. Sorceress.

“I know the power of stories and of voices. Even silenced ones. So let me end mine with what I have seen of Sycorax, and assure you again that once, she had a voice, and it was loud and melodious and filled with magic”. 

I was entranced by this beautifully lyrical tale of the unseen sorcerous of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This is my favourite Shakespeare play because I love its atmosphere and the use of musical sounds to conjure up this enchanted island, ruled by the magician Prospero. Sycorax isn’t even present in the play, but is mentioned as a sorcerous and mother of Caliban, who is depicted as a monster and a slave to Prospero. The author wants to give Sycorax a voice, one that she doesn’t have in the play, to tell us in her own words what it was like to be treated with suspicion and cruelty. Sycorax’s story is an emotional one as she wrestles with her identity, her powers and the loneliness of being an outcast. Each time her powers grow the more isolated she becomes.The author is clearly so passionate about this book and giving her central character a voice and I think she achieves it beautifully. 

The story unfolds slowly while the author immerses us in the world Sycorax inhabits, at first with her parents. Taking her cue from Shakespeare her prose is lyrical and poetic. I really felt like I was in the presence of a magical being and it was the sounds that really grabbed me – the tinkle of sea shells on her mother’s anklets, the sounds of the sea, the lazy buzz of the honey bees they keep. I felt as if I was cocooned on a Caribbean island and strangely relaxed too. Everything is so aligned with nature and nothing interrupts, because even the market is just laying a blanket at the side of the road and selling in the open. By creating this mindful and harmonious background the author makes sure that when something does interrupt, it tears through this idyll and comes as a shock. So when Sycorax goes down to the marina and sailors are unloading goods, the noise is a huge contrast and the roughness of these men who are filthy and covered with lice makes us realise what a feminine energy the rest of the book has. This assault on her senses is violent and the unmistakably male. Despite the beauty of it’s language there are tough subjects here, that are based in misogyny and how women with healing skills are misunderstood by society. There’s also an element of colonialism here, over women’s bodies as well as where they live. 

“Women are used as an instrument of war. Our bodies are another land to be invaded, destroyed and conquered.”

There’s a big hint that her mother was aware of men’s need to conquer and control. In fact, her mother blindfolds Sycorax from a young age, covering the incredible violet colour – I imagined them like Elizabeth Taylor’s amazing eyes. Yet she doesn’t hide them because something is wrong with them, but more because they are extraordinary and it might draw male attention. This could mean a sexual possession, such as the attention Sycorax experiences from Afalkay the Beautiful. However, nothing makes men more fearful than a woman with knowledge and if she won’t behave or remain hidden might they attempt to silence her? In spite of everything she faces, Sycorax remains strong, a strength that could be attributed to her upbringing with her tenacious and otherworldly mother. Sycorax’s ongoing inner strength and determination to find her own identity in a world that shuns her, is something to truly admire. Because of this she is vehemently hated among the townsfolk, especially men because she won’t disappear.

I admired Sycorax’s strength, just her ability to keep getting up each day and going on. Everything they try to be rid of her just doesn’t work. Described as born of the sun and moon and shaped by fire and malady gives us a sense of her resolve, she’s hard as forged iron. Of course my main interest would be disability and chronic illness, being a fellow sufferer. I wrote my English Lit dissertation on disability representation and my Renaissance literature exam on Caliban and a potential reading of his character as someone with a disability. Yet somehow I hadn’t picked up on his mother and here we see her as stiffened, bent over and in chronic pain. This is Nydia’s purpose in writing this story, she beautifully dedicates her book to readers with chronic illness. This is so moving to me because we’re so rarely seen these days in an empathic or positive way. We’re so rarely seen at all. I mean really seen by someone who knows our struggle. It’s important to point out that Sycorax is a woman with chronic illness and this is a very different experience to a man – it’s shown in research that women’s pain is taken less seriously when presenting at A and E. Even when when women visit multiple times, doctors are slower at ordering tests or referring to a consultant. 

There’s a constant sense of give and take between Sycorax and her universe. Strangely the more she’s affected by illness, the more powerful she becomes. The power comes in the shape of wisdom, because people with chronic illness understand things about life that other people won’t get in a lifetime. It’s also about resilience, something that comes with time and getting to know how your illness affects you. By working with it, Sycorax knows what her body can do and how much activities will take out of her. Everything is a bargain and when she has to take to her bed she counts rest as an activity. I love that Nydia puts her own wisdom into the character, in the need to measure out energy daily and live with constant pain. Everything Sycorax goes through and learns about her illness, we follow and it was moving to hear words that have gone through my own head. I’ve woken up in agony, out of nowhere, trying to work out what tasks are absolutely necessary and which can wait. I was moved when Sycorax was taken to a woman in labour by a friend of her mother’s, teaching her how to help and support. The woman is screaming and thrashing, so Sycorax goes and kneels by her head, holding it gently and singing a song in a rhythm. She slows down the woman’s breathing and draws her attention to the ebb and flow of the pain. It calms the woman and allows her to work with contractions rather than fight them. This is something I do when in pain and something I’ve taught clients with chronic pain. Even severe pain is rarely continuous agony. It has a pattern, a shift, an ebb and flow. If you tune into the ebb and flow of pain you can go with it rather than fight it. That’s what I’m going to take away from this beautiful book, to remind myself of the ebb and flow in life and in my own body. Nydia has written a beautiful piece of work that takes us full circle to The Tempest. She’s managed to bring 21st Century injustices to the forefront without losing any of the magical beauty of the original play.

Meet the Author

From Leeds — although born on Merseyside and spending the first few years of life on the Isle of Man — Nydia Hetherington moved to London in her early twenties to embark on an acting career. Later she moved to Paris where she created her own theatre company. When she returned to London a decade later, she completed a creative writing degree graduating with first class honours.



Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday! This Lovely City by Louise Hare

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This first of Louise Hare’s novels really stayed with me, it grabbed me early and never let go. When a writer whisks you so convincingly to another time and place it’s such an incredible skill. I found myself in post-Windrush London where new people are making the capital their home and the huge social change is causing friction. As one mixed race character observed ‘she was no longer the odd one out’ as she went to the market. More immigrants are arriving, wandering the streets, weighed down by layers thrown on haphazardly as the reality of a British winter starts to bite. However, as those first pioneers answered the call from the motherland, they’d found London not at all what they were expecting. The British government had put that call out to its colonies. They needed workers, to replace those men lost in WW2 and to rebuild cities recovering from the Blitz. Yet no one seemed grateful, no one said thank you and the living was far from easy.

We follow two main characters: Lawrie and Evie. They are courting in the old fashioned sense. Lawrie sees in Evie a nice girl, a girl who has been well brought up even though she has never known her father. He wants to do things properly, do right by her. So he calls and they go to the cinema or for a walk. Lawrie has come over from Jamaica and works part time as a musician in a local band and full time as a postman, with a sideline in the odd special black market delivery too. Evie has lived in London her whole life with her mother Agnes. They have been Lawrie’s neighbours ever since a rented room opened up at the house next door. The two women understand prejudice, because they too have been victims of it, and live a life kept very much to themselves. Evie is mixed race and Agnes, who is white, has been the subject of gossip and judgement ever since she Evie was born. So, although what transpires in the book may be shocking to us, it barely surprises them, because they know how people feel about any sort of difference from the white British norm. 

The story splits into two time frames approximately one year apart. In one, Lawrie is cutting across Clapham Common at the end of his postal route when he hears a woman shouting. She has found a baby in the pond. Lawrie rushes to help, but they are both too late. The baby becomes the book’s central mystery and because she has black skin, suspicion falls upon the already beleaguered Jamaican community. Rathbone, is the police officer assigned to the case and he relishes causing problems for the community. His suspicions fall on Lawrie, as the first man on the scene, but Rathbone doesn’t just investigate, he sets out to ruin Lawrie’s life. However, there is a secret to this baby’s background that is closer to home than Lawrie imagines.

I found myself rooting for Lawrie and Evie. I wanted them to be able to make marriage plans and live the simple, quiet life they dreamed about. Her mother Agnes has had to be very strong, being an unmarried mother of a mixed race child meant being ostracised. Evie has a childhood memory of her mother having the neighbours for tea when, against her instructions, Evie was caught looking down through the banisters. They never had tea for the neighbours again. It takes Evie several years to make the link; she is the reason her mum has no friends or visitors. This same hostility is now experienced by the men who arrived on the Windrush and it must have been bewildering. To be asked to this country, to fill a shortage of labour and pull a country out of difficulty, then meet nothing but hostility and suspicion from its people seems so unjust. 

A lot of the tension in the novel is around sex and relationships. When the band are booked to play a wedding, the British host is immediately taken aback but decides they can play. All is well until a woman stumbles on the dance floor and one of the band rushes to help. Her husband doesn’t appreciate his wife being touched by a black man and a brawl breaks out causing the band to run for their lives. Provocative women, like the character Rose, stir up tension even more. The men refer to her as Rita Hayworth, the red-haired Hollywood bombshell. When the men first arrive she helps with getting them settled. Then she offers to take Lawrie and his friend to the Lido, dazzling them in her bikini and flirting with Lawrie. She makes it very clear that she wants him with no thought to the consequences if her husband finds out. Interracial relationships are simply not accepted. As Agnes points out, her daughter Evie is far better off in a long term relationship with Lawrie, because although they come from very different places, society will view them as the same due to their skin colour. 

I felt immersed in this world the author has created. From the cold mornings on Lawrie’s postal round, to the smoky nightclubs the band plays into the early hours. This is my grandparents generation so I could also imagine the homes, the struggle of still being on rations and for the women, trying to look nice on a tight budget. It reminded me of stories my grandma and great- aunts told me about going out dancing in post-war Liverpool. I felt so much for Evie, especiallywhen her whole story unfolded towards the end of the novel. There is a whole cast of interesting characters, but Evie and Lawrie are this novel’s heart and I desperately wanted life to work out for them. Louise Hare has written a vibrant book with an incredible sense of place and time, and interesting characters. I loved it. In fact it’s a mark of how much I now love this author that I pre-ordered her next book due in 2026.

Meet the Author

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, she has found inspiration in the capital for much of her work, including This Lovely City and Miss Aldridge Regrets.

This Lovely City was featured on the inaugural BBC Two TV book club show, Between the Covers, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award. Louise was selected for the Observer Top 10 Best Debut Novelists list in 2020, securing her place as an author to watch.

Posted in Netgalley

The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I want a thriller that I’ll absolutely devour in one or two sittings, I always reach for Mark Edwards and his latest is very unsettling. Fiona Smith is new on the street and is trying to get to know her neighbours. Ethan and Emma Dove seem like a lovely couple, in fact they’re the ideal family. Their kids Dylan and Rose are targeted by the two tearaways who live across the road who circle the other teenagers on their scrambler bikes, as their German Shepherds circle their terrified cockapoo Lola. Fiona intervenes and when later one of the boys has a terrible accident their parents are convinced someone caused the tyre blowout that resulted in a head injury. It couldn’t have been Fiona could it? The boy’s parents can’t find a trace of Fiona online so no red flags. However, the elderly lady called Iris who lives on the corner, she’s sure she’s seen Fiona before but can’t quite put her finger on where. When Fiona offers to look after Ethan and Emma’s daughter Rosie for the summer she has definitely become a feature in their lives. Their son Dylan is unsure. He definitely doesn’t need a babysitter, but it isn’t just that. Fiona unnerves him. He’s noticed that when no one is looking her expression becomes neutral, like a robot. Rose is enraptured though and they begin to visit Fiona’s favourite places and play chess together when it’s raining. All the time Fiona is monitoring Rose. Has she seen a glimmer of herself in this ordinary seeming teenage girl? As Fiona starts to test out Rose’s limits, Ethan and Emma are oblivious to what’s happening to their daughter. 

The action takes place over one summer, with steadily rising tension. I can promise you that you’ll reach a certain point and won’t want to put this down. Ethan and Emma have a fairly ordinary family life with the usual ups and downs. I felt Ethan was much more fleshed out than Emma, he’s recently taken the risk of opening a vinyl record store and taking the move further out of London. They had a recent crisis in their relationship after Emma became close to a work colleague – something Ethan describes as an ‘emotional affair’. Fiona is very amused by this description and sees it as a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between them. I was surprised that they so readily agreed to leaving Rose with their new neighbour, after all their knowledge of her is vague at best. They haven’t even been inside her house. However, I did understand the financial pressures and needing to be two working parents with teenagers pushing to do different things. Fiona is a godsend, a very rare adult that Rose enjoys being with. They definitely seem to have a bond, but is that down to a shared psychology? Rose could just be doing that teenage girl thing of being fascinated with a woman who isn’t her mum. Fiona allows little slivers of rebellion, like watching a horror film that her mum wouldn’t approve of. This builds a web of secrets between them and lets Rose feel like a grown-up. 

Psychologically, the story is fascinating. The word ‘grooming’ has to be applied here. Fiona is very aware of the protection her gender affords and a further layer is afforded to mothers. No one suspects a mother and her daughter, it’s the same reason that female murderers become so infamous: women are creators not destroyers. There’s also the nature versus nurture debate, is Fiona simply harnessing a tendency already present in Rose or will her grooming bring out behaviour that would have otherwise stayed dormant. There are some heart-stopping moments as the novel comes towards the final showdown and I was absolutely gripped. I love that Mark Edwards doesn’t follow the usual tropes of thrillers, because I kept thinking that once Rose realises her full potential there would be no going back. Psychopathy has some treatment options available, but current thinking is that it’s an inherited or genetic condition where the areas of the brain controlling behaviour and impulse control are underdeveloped. Treatment is a combination of psychotherapy, behavioural training and an emphasis on the importance of connection to family and the wider community. However, it is a disorder that can only be controlled rather than cured. Once someone has been shown that society’s rules can be broken can they ever truly go back to how they were before? One thing that really stood out to me was that Fiona’s house has no books! Always a bad sign I think and as a piece of advice on dating it was invaluable; if you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t sleep with them. I won’t ruin the book by saying too much, but I highly recommend it to those who enjoy devouring thrillers. In fact if you’ve never read Mark Edwards before go and take a look at his previous books too. You won’t be disappointed. 

Out now from Thomas and Mercer

Meet the Author

I write books in which scary things happen to ordinary people, the best known of which are Follow You Home, The Magpies, and Here To Stay. My novels have sold over 5 million copies and topped the bestseller lists numerous times. I pride myself on writing fast-paced page-turners with lots of twists and turns, relatable characters and dark humour. My next novel is The Wasp Trap, which will be published in July in the UK/Australia and September in the US/Canada. 

I live in the West Midlands, England, with my wife, our three children, two cats and a golden retriever.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Blackbirds of St Giles by Lila Cain

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Our story starts in 1768 on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica, where a slave rebellion has been brewing. The signal will be sent to all the slaves by drum and Daniel has heard their rhythm. He needs to get to the house where his sweetheart Adanna works for the mistress, the house slaves aren’t in on the secret and he wants to get there in time. The field slaves might harm the house slaves along with their masters, perceiving their lives to be easier and their loyalties divided. When Daniel realises the house is already ablaze he leaves with his little sister Pearl, hoping to find a way to get off the island. His story then jumps to 1782 and the aftermath of the War of Independence where free slaves who fought for the British were promised a new life in England. Daniel was one such soldier fighting with the British under Major Edward Fitzallen, whose life he saved. Edward and his wife Elizabeth have taken Daniel and Pearl under their wing, meaning that both brother and sister have a level of education and independence one might think unusual for Jamaican slaves. When Edward is wounded he knows he won’t make the voyage home and calls Daniel to his side. He wants to ensure that Daniel and Pearl have a future in England and calls witnesses to his signature on a new will and testament. It hands all his worldly goods over to Daniel, telling him to call on his brother James to inform him of Edward’s demise and Daniel’s new position as his heir. Daniel naively expects the Fitzallen brothers to be equally honourable and he underestimates James who drugs Daniel, then throws the new will and all proof of Daniel’s claim and rank into the fire. Now Pearl and Daniel are abandoned in London with nothing.

There were many black soldiers shipped over here with the promise of a new life, without any provision made for them when they arrived. Many ended up in the area of St Giles, home to the infamous Rookery which was a warren of corridors and rooms under Covent Garden and accessed through St Giles church crypt. Here lived those forgotten black slaves, Irish immigrants escaping famine and others who had no means to live. People like Daniel and Pearl were outcasts from civilised society and known as the Blackbirds of St Giles, living in dark caves where sewage ran in channels through the rooms. The book was so beautifully detailed, taking us effortlessly into the late 18th Century like time travellers. I could sense absolutely everything from the steady thrum of the drums in Jamaica to the smells of London squalor and it’s poorest residences. The divide between those in poverty and those who are rich is a deep canyon, all the more shocking to Daniel who has become used to a certain deference and to Pearl who barely remembers the plantation and has grown up by Elizabeth Fitzallen’s side with all the privileges of a middle class young woman. Daniel and Pearl’s new home is a dark underground cave where it’s a choice between breathing or being cold because smoke from the fire can’t dissipate and simply sits in the room with them, making them cough and their eyes water. The rooms are filled with a sense of dark foreboding, worsened when Daniel sees the first ceremony with their self-styled King. I loved how the Black Apollo club is a haven by contrast with such an open and accepting feeling. Here black men are relaxed, having a drink or playing chess with friends. It’s a glimpse into the far future, because many of their customers can only dream of a time they’re not a servant, regarded with suspicion or hidden as a dirty secret. There’s also a contrast with Elias’s lodgings as King of the Rookery, he doesn’t share the dark caves of his subjects but instead enjoys plush lodgings policed by a beautiful, prowling cheetah called Infanta. 

The sense of terrible injustice is palpable and I was desperate for Daniel to get what is owed to him. Daniel and Pearl have been defrauded and it all feels worse because of the dignity and command he’s had under Edward Fitzallen. I found myself rooting for them both pretty quickly. Their friendship meant that Pearl was always well-dressed and learned to read, something of a privilege for a young black woman born into slavery. The only man who could have corroborated Daniel’s claim is back on his ship by the time Daniel wakes from being drugged. There’s no way to get what he’s owed now. It’s only when he starts training with ex-boxer Melkie Trimme at his St Giles gym that Daniel starts to feel a sense of purpose and pride again. If he can beat the European champion then he and Pearl can get better lodgings and start to repay the kindness shown to them by young girl Jen who has organised their place at The Rookery, brought them food from her pub job and introduced him to some of the most influential men she knows. Daniel is drawn to her, but is still plagued with guilt about Adanna.

For me the women were particularly interesting. In the literature written or set in the 18th Century we’re used to the upper and middle classes, not people like these at the bottom. If we think of the Regency novels of Jane Austen and the more contemporary Bridgerton series the women are accomplished, but it’s all focused on making a good marriage. Women who are poor have no time for accomplishments as they’re too busy surviving, but they have more agency and autonomy. Jen is such a pretty girl but she’s fiery and used to making her own decisions. She has very little but she’s surviving and shows kindness and generosity to those she cares about. Having survived an horrific childhood she is keen for rebellion and knows that Daniel might have what it takes to lead people out of The Rookery and end Elias’s tyranny. She also takes Pearl under her wing and guides her into earning her own money for herself. Daniel wants to protect Pearl and keep her in the middle-class propriety she’s been used to, but this is no use to her when they’re living in a squalid underground cavern. Pearl really rises to the occasion with very little complaint, starting to work at the pub with Jen, then sneaking out in the evening for singing engagements. She has a beautiful voice and Jen thinks it might be her ticket out of the slums. As for the Marquise, she has used her beauty and poise to get where she is. When we’re let into her opulent townhouse Daniel is shocked at the squalor most black immigrants are living in compared to her. How could a black woman reach the heights she has? That’s without mentioning the residence in France or her wardrobe, full of all the gowns and perfumes she can wear. Could there be hints of a darker truth underneath the opulence?

All in all this is a fantastic historical novel; vivid and dark, but ultimately hopeful. I love it when authors take a character and write them back into the period of history they’ve been erased from. Middle class writers would rarely write about the people of The Rookery. Even Charles Dickens didn’t hint at this underground life, despite his interest in those living in poverty. Obadiah is such a great character, a disabled resident of the Rookery whose intellect and philosophies are articulate and inspiring. The fact that he runs the brotherhood at the Black Apollo and has a place at the head of the planning table is amazing. The other men do look up to him as their oracle. It seems strange to imagine that the novels of Jane Austen are only a few years away, because in them we never hear of people like this. It’s easy to forget that not everyone lives in the countryside and working class women are out there making things happen, working everyday and not at home with an embroidery hoop on their lap hoping for a gentleman caller. There’s no one from a different country and even the poor are ‘distressed gentlefolk’. Comparing this world with Austen’s shows how urban, dynamic and exciting London is, especially if women and people of all races have an opportunity to create their own future. Some did, like Olaudah Equiano who was enslaved to a master and a role in the Royal Navy. He came to Britain at the same time as Daniel and once he’d bought back his freedom had become a merchant. Sadly he had to stop travelling when he was almost captured and sold back into slavery in Georgia. However, he did write a memoir that’s still in print today. I came away from this book with everything crossed for Daniel and Pearl, as well as Jen. I was so immersed in the story that it felt strange to look up and find myself back in my own living room. 

Meet the Author

Writing together as Lila Cain, Marcia Hutchinson and Kate Griffin are the co-writers and creators of The Blackbirds of St Giles, the first of two books centred on the lives of members of the little-known black community in Georgian London. United by their passion for history and a strong desire to tell an unfamiliar – and hugely resonant – story, Kate and Marcia are delighted that ‘Blackbirds’ and its sequel will be published by Simon & Schuster.

Marcia Hutchinson worked as a lawyer before founding educational publishing company Primary Colours and was awarded an MBE for services to Cultural Diversity in 2010. Her solo debut novel Mercy is due for publication in summer 2025. 

Kate is the author of Fyneshade (Viper), a stand-alone Neo-Victorian gothic novel of witchcraft in a house of dark secrets. She is also the writer of the popular Kitty Peck thriller series (Faber and Faber) set in the Music Halls of Victorian London. After studying English Literature at university, Kate worked as assistant to a London antique dealer, as a journalist and in PR. Until recently she was Head of Communications for Britain’s oldest conservation charity, The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). Her love of old buildings and the stories they tell continues to inspire her.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Rules for Ghosting by Shelley Jay Shore

Posted on by thelotusreaders

There are three rules about ghosts. Rule #1: They can’t speak. | Rule #2: They can’t move. | Rule #3: They can’t hurt you.

Ezra Friedman grew up in the family funeral home which is complicated for someone who can see ghosts. Worst of all was his grandfather’s ghost and his disapproving looks at every choice Ezra made, from his taste in boys to his HRT-induced second puberty. It’s no wonder that since moving out, he’s stayed as far away from the family business as possible.

However, when his dream job doesn’t work out, his mother invites him to Passover Seder and announces she’s running away with the rabbi’s wife! Now Ezra finds himself back at the funeral home to help out and is soon in the thick of it. He has to deal with his loved ones and his crush on Jonathon, one of their volunteers. Jonathon is their neighbour so Ezra is trying to keep the crush under wraps while also dealing with Jonathon’s relative, a spectre who’s keen on breaking all the rules. Ezra must keep his family together and avoid heartbreak, but is starting to realise there’s more than one way to be haunted. 

This book came totally out of left field and I didn’t know what to expect at all, but I fell in love with it. I do connect to books about grief and loss as it’s something I’ve gone through but I also loved it’s emphasis on family, culture and tradition. Yes the book is about grief, but it’s also about love. Ezra is a Jewish trans man so it’s also firmly based in the queer community and I enjoyed that too. The romance is quiet and more of a slow burn than the heat of passion, tempered by Jonathon’s recent loss of his father. It depicts the chaos and disruption of death beautifully, especially in how it affects family members differently and can come between them. Ezra and the funeral staff treat deceased persons with respect; they’re both gentle and caring in their work with them and their grieving families. The author takes us deeply into the customs and rituals surrounding a death in a Jewish family and I find this so interesting because we can all learn from each other’s ceremonies and traditions. I felt that their attention to detail and the respect they had for the people brought to their funeral home was ultimately life affirming. Their deference shows how precious life is and that our relationships with family are the most important thing of all. 

I also loved the author’s focus on something that I think is the secret to a happy and contented life – being your authentic self. We can see how Ezra’s connection to his communities – family, religion and the queer community – grounds him and reminds him of who he is. When we’re not true to who we are we start to feel dislocated and uncomfortable. Through Ezra’s story we explore how to find yourself again and hopefully be your authentic self. The book felt so much more than a romance, because it’s really a family story too. With a delicate touch the author also brings a light humour to the story, softening the grief and loss without being disrespectful which is a difficult balance to find. It surprised me that this was a debut novel because she’s managed that balance perfectly. My only criticism is that I was hoping for more ghosts. They were more of a background feature than relevant to the plot and from the blurb and title I expected more. Having said that it’s still a great story and I’d love to read more from this writer. 

Published Aug 2024 from Trapeze.

Meet the Author

Shelly Jay Shore (she/they) is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender. Her work on queer Jewish identity has been published by Autostraddle, Hey Alma, and the Bisexual Resource Center.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Silence Is A Sense by Layla AlAammar

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Even though I’m so late reading this book, in a way I’m glad. For the past two years we have been embroiled in the aftermath of the previous government’s decision to house asylum seekers at the the now closed RAF base close by. While many of the community were worried about the issue, our reasons for concern were very different. When a local meeting descended into a heated exchange, it became clear that despite our concerns for the asylum seekers, we couldn’t voice them because of the sheer weight of people strongly opposing the plan for other reasons. Local concerns became lost in the wider debate on refugees. The campaign was targeted by far right organisations that didn’t really care about reasonable concerns, they just wanted to use the opportunity for their own political gain. Known fascists became interested and the gate to the base became a makeshift camp festooned with flags, stop the boats banners and others claiming asylum seekers were paedophiles. It became really hard to drive past and see all this racism and misinformation on the gates of such an iconic base, ironically known for it’s fighting against a fascist regime taking over Europe. We became part of an organisation set up to support the asylum seekers as they arrived into this hostile environment. When the new government changed course with the policy, we were relieved to know that there no longer fascist organisations camping out up the road. This book gave me more insight into a refugee’s journey.

The writer cleverly chooses a fragmented structure to tell her heroine’s story. Named ‘The Voiceless’ she writes about her experience as a way of processing her story and communicating it to other people as far as she can. Her memory comes in snippets, so her narrative moves back and forth in time and might seem a bit sketchy. Imagine everything you have is taken away from you. Your home is rubble, everything you owned that said something about who you are is gone with it. You have no documents to prove your identity or your education. Everyone you have known is either dead or scattered to the wind. She has escaped Aleppo with nothing. If you think about how your belongings, choices of clothing and your photographs say something about who you are, now imagine it gone. How do you keep a sense of self? Especially when you’re seeing or subjected to atrocities like killing, abuse and rape. Your psyche becomes shattered. Our narrator is trying to record those fragments, to bear witness and also to put the bits of herself back together. It might feel strange, even jarring at first but it’s supposed to be. It’s meant to confront and make you think.

The author shows us how she tries to embark on a future and make connections. She’s starting a journey of self-discovery, rebuilding herself in this new environment. She writes from home and watches her neighbours, keeping her eye on them. It’s called hyper-vigilance and it’s hard for her to drop these habits even though she’s now safe. Her muteness isolates her from others, in fact many people assume she’s deaf as well. She takes small steps outside, using the shop and going to the mosque and starts to meet people. Her observations of her neighbours are quite humorous as she gives them names that reflect their behaviour – the Juicer and No Light Man. Her insight into us is brilliant. She has that outsider’s gaze and because she doesn’t want to reveal too much about herself at first, she can use these observations. She writes about the people she sees, the strange way of life she can observe with so much scrutiny because it’s alien to her.

Slowly she starts to process and share her own story. She once had a somewhat privileged upbringing, she was well-educated too but war has left her with nothing. Then there’s the war, loss and the terror of trying to get to a place of refuge; a refuge that isn’t always the safe place it seems. She slowly makes space for new people in her life. I felt like her writing and sharing was helping her heal, remembering the trauma and processing it fully helps make room for growth. As someone who advocates writing therapy I found this so moving. The author has captured this process so beautifully as the writing becomes less fragmented and less about the past. This is such an important story and I’ll be buying the book for a few friends who I know will want to read it and maybe a few who wouldn’t. The sections of her time in Syria and travelling to the UK is so evocative, I defy people not to be moved by the raw truth of her experience.

Posted in Netgalley

Crescendo by Joanna Howat

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I love reading debuts because you’re never sure what you’re going to find and this tale of two adult siblings who lose their parents suddenly has all the family dynamics and trauma that I love to untangle in a novel. Jamie and Caz are used to their parents being top of the social scale in their area, a small village close to a market town in Yorkshire. Their family home is a hall in the centre of the village, where Jamie still lives alongside his parents having not found his career path yet. Caz has left home, but has a chequered history of teen pregnancy and alcoholism. She married husband Steve after he came to work on the hall’s electrics when her first little girl was only a baby and she had been sober for several months. Now they live in a cottage a short drive away from her childhood home and recently she’s had another baby. The catalyst to their problems is the loss of their parents. One Sunday both siblings are there for lunch when Jamie and his father clash over what he sees as his son’s fecklessness when it comes to making a life for himself. Jamie has secured a job with the local estate agents but desperately needs to sell a house this month. The best thing in his life is his recent relationship with local vet Zoe. What Jamie loves is his piano, but he doesn’t think he has the skill of a concert pianist. This Sunday he decides not to take his father’s criticism and storms out in a huff. That night the hall goes up in flames, so fast that no one could escape and the hall is burned to the ground. 

For both siblings the village now looks like a set of teeth with one missing. The huge gap left in the centre is soon boarded so no one can see the wreckage, but it doesn’t allay the shock. Caz is immediately emotional, dazed even and takes refuge with Ruth, their housekeeper who lived next to the hall. Jamie seems frozen. The only thing he wants to save is his piano but it is damaged, maybe beyond repair. Insurance will take care of it and will hopefully rebuild the hall, but do they want that? They have no idea about their parent’s wishes, for the meantime Jamie has to buy some clothes and moves in with Zoe. It’s very early in their relationship but Jamie thinks they’ll get along fine. As he moves through life like an automaton, Caz starts to slide downhill. Gin was her usual tipple, but avoiding that she thinks an occasional glass of wine won’t hurt. One glass soon becomes a bottle and as she starts to hide her stash from Steve we can see that this could be a serious relapse. So can Jamie, but he’s having his own problems. The turmoil in his life is too heavy for the early stages of a relationship. Zoe had no relationship with his parents and although she can listen, she still has her own routine of riding and looking after her horse, whereas at the moment Jamie is sleepwalking through work and every time they are intimate, visions of the hall burning down come into his mind and ruin the moment. He’s not sure if he’s dealing with his grief at all. When Zoe decides they need some space from each other, he moves out to Caz and Steve’s house. Now he’s noticing that his sister isn’t coping either and his nieces are suffering. How can the siblings best help each other to cope? 

I loved how the author shows grief hitting people in different ways. In some ways Jamie has never had to grow up. Living under his parent’s roof has enabled to try jobs and leave them with minimum consequences, while away hours in the village pub and not think beyond tomorrow. Caz has also depended on her parents, dropping out of university pregnant and with an alcohol problem. She moved home and had her baby there, until Steve actually walked through the door for a contracting job and they fell in love. For both of them, there’s now no safety net and the place filled with all those memories has gone too. Jamie also fears the loss of his piano, which has been lifted from the wreckage and been sent to a specialist repairer by the insurers. Music was the way that Jamie processed his emotions and without it he seems strangely neutral all the time, occasionally tapping out melodies using his fingers on whatever surface he find. Caz is more erratic, grabbing convenience foods instead of her usual home cooked meals and forgetting the girls activities or even to wash their uniforms. When the drinking starts Steve stays away from it, leaving Jamie with a full time job and two small children to feed and get out of the door in the open. He knows teachers have noticed the girls are a bit unkempt, but he doesn’t want to drop his sister in it. He just keeps smiling and nodding that everything’s okay. There’s only one person that won’t have the wool pulled over their eyes and that’s their parent’s housekeeper Ruth. Caz fears not letting the emotions out. Jamie thinks if he gives in and feels his emotions he might fall apart completely.

Through Jamie the author shows how grief can change our outlook on life completely. He becomes sentimental about an old couple looking for a house. He has a beautiful Georgian house on the books and he’s shown it to a rude and superior client with an enormous dog who didn’t seem interested. Then he has an adorable old couple who want to downsize and be closer to amenities, but he needs a studio to work in and it is in town. When he shows it to them he knows it should be theirs and when they offer he is ecstatic and shakes hands. Then the first woman comes back and offers 10k over the asking price, but Jamie says it’s already sold and turns her offer down, much to the fury of his manager. Jamie feels different, where once he might have taken the high offer now he can’t. Does he see his own parents in the old couple? Or is it that loss has given him a conscience? I really identified with this because after being seriously ill I returned to my work as an advertising rep only to struggle with selling newspaper space. It felt so trivial in the scheme of things I simply didn’t have the killer instinct. This was when I was sacked but went on to train as a counsellor and worked with the Mental Health Team in my area. It felt like I’d helped someone every day I went to work and it felt more in tune with my changing values. 

I really felt for Jamie and wanted him to get his piano back and be able to express himself more. I was also so happy at his care for his nieces and his loyalty to his sister. Underneath the immaturity Zoe was concerned about, he’s a kind, perceptive and caring man. I was hoping they would find a way back to each other. Similarly I wanted Steve to reconnect with his wife and family and realise that while keeping a roof over their head was important, so was spending time together as a family. The author’s setting is perfect and having lived in villages all my life, I knew they come with beautiful countryside around them, but also residents who want to know all of your business. As my parents get older I do wonder what it might be like when they’re gone and I’m now the oldest member of the family. They’re my anchor, but so is my brother and I know our relationship will probably be stronger. I think the author makes it clear how seismic a shock it is when someone close to us dies. I loved the play on musical terms because the storyline has a tempo and Jamie is our conductor, desperately trying to keep the orchestra together towards the crescendo and beyond. This is a thoughtful and real story that had a lot of heart in it. 

Out now from Flying Dog Press

Meet the Author


Joanna Howat trained as a journalist and worked as a news producer for BBC Radio 5 Live. She now lives in her native North Yorkshire with her family and two spaniels, and is a keen classical pianist. Crescendo is her first published novel.

Posted in Netgalley

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious…

This addictive thriller was set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and gave off distinct Saltburn vibes with it’s resident family and the outsiders who’ve come to stay. Camden was adopted by the infamous Ruby McTavish, Carolina’s richest woman and childhood victim of a kidnapping plot. Camden has been estranged from his adoptive mother for years, walking away from the family money and living an ordinary life with wife Jules. When he receives a visit from his cousin he can’t ignore his family any longer. Ruby has left Ashby House, the family home, to Camden despite the fact he doesn’t live there or speak to any of the family that do. His first instinct, on being asked to return to his childhood home is to refuse, but Jules persuades him that they should take the trip. Ashby House is famous because Ruby McTavish was kidnapped from the grounds when she was a small child, but then returned. Ruby was famous locally: for the kidnapping, for the wealth she inherits from her father Alexander McTavish who was a lumber magnate and for the amount of times she was married. Can Camden make peace with his eccentric step-family members who rely on Ashby House for a roof over their heads? Or will he sign away his inheritance and turn his back on them forever? 

Ashby House is as eccentric and jumbled up as the family that remains and is set in a beautiful spot with the Blue Ridge Mountains providing it’s backdrop. 

‘Built in 1904 by lumber magnate Alexander McTavish, the house is as eccentric as the family who owns it. Part Victorian, part Palladian, it features smooth gray stone and peaked roofs, marble patios and leaded windows. It should not work and yet, miraculously—almost mystically—it does. Guests of the home have commented that there’s something about Ashby House that makes you feel as if the rest of the world does not exist. As if you could stay safely tucked behind its walls forever and want for nothing else.’

Jules is charmed by the house, particularly the view from the porch up to the mountains. Up till now she has been satisfied with their life and their cosy little flat. She was used to being anonymous. Now she can’t shop in town without special treatment, everyone seems to know that she’s Camden McTavish’s wife. Even if some family members thought Cam shouldn’t inherit, not being a blood McTavish, the town seemed to accept him. As the remaining family members at Ashby start to manipulate and jostle for position, I wondered whether Jules was growing rather fond of the life that her husband had vowed to leave behind. Though it was becoming clear that being part of this particular family is a bit of a poisoned chalice. It felt all the time that a game was being played out but I had no idea who had devised it. I loved Ruby’s letters, beautifully placed between the main narrative, explaining her motivations and serving up some brutal honesty about her husbands. Strangely, although her behaviour is reprehensible, it’s hard not to like Ruby. She’s audacious, daring and has a dark humour I really enjoy. However, she’s also self-centred and devious. In fact most members of the family could be described this way. Ashby House is a viper’s nest of ego, deception, manipulation and avarice. I worried that Cam and Jules would submit to it’s deathly grip. Could that incredible porch view and the ease of a life with money win them over? 

The first chapters of the book are a little slow and I was unsure about where it was going at first. After that we get Ruby’s letters, but also the family history that Cam wants no part of, as well as a build up in the tension between the family members. This starts to grab you and the pace picks up all the way to the end. I started to wonder where revelations might come from next! While everyone was under one roof it started to feel like an old-fashioned detective novel/film with an ensemble cast and a plot straight from a Knives Out or Agatha Christie film. This unusual mansion is something of a labyrinth, with each family member quietly plotting and conspiring in their own corner of the building. The slightly overgrown grounds, mountains and sheer cliffs gave plenty of opportunities for ‘accidents’. The author was brilliant at a quick reveal, then immediately hitting you with another suspicion or question. I loved the long running theme of nature or nurture. Is deception in the McTavish blood or is it simply learned by watching generations of machinations nesting in Ashby House? 

Out now from Headline

Meet the Author

Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama, and is currently at work on the third book in the Hex Hall series. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree….

Posted in Books of the Year 2024

My Top 20 Books of 2024 – Part 1

Posted on by thelotusreaders

For the last four years I’ve been choosing my favourite books of the according to the year – Top 23 of 2023. I realised that would have to stop, otherwise I’d be doing my top 30 in a few years and that would be ridiculous. So I’ve limited myself to 20 and it’s been so hard. I’ve had to be ruthless. I enjoyed every one of these books, despite their different genres, because of the psychological elements: anxiety about the state of the world; relationship dynamics; becoming radicalised; events from the past marring the future; what makes someone kill; growing up with loss. Also, as you’d perhaps expect considering everything we have to worry about in today’s world, there are allusions to climate change, anti -vaxxers, pandemics, war, misogyny and violence against women, the wellbeing industry and psychological problems. There’s so much to wrap your reading brain around here so I’m going to whet your appetite…

This Squad Pod read from early 2024 kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. It was like a breath of fresh air. Cole is a great husband to wife Melanie, in fact he would definitely say he’s one of the good guys. So when his marriage ends he can’t understand what he’s done wrong. In the aftermath he moves to an isolated coastal area and meets artist Lennie who lives in the cottage on the cliff. Soon they’re tentatively embarking on a relationship, but when two activists go missing during their coastal walk to publicise violence against women it disrupts everything and the police are starting to ask questions. The twists in this book are brilliantly executed and totally unexpected. It’s daringly different and left me so much to think about.

Charity Norman always leaves us with a lot to think about, but this latest novel was particularly thought provoking. Scott and Livia have two children and are always on call to help Scott’s brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. It’s Scott’s inability to help his brother one Saturday morning followed by his sudden death that starts a downward spiral. One careless comment about his brother’s care sets Scott on a search for answers, branching into medical conspiracy theories and the dark web. So when son Noah falls ill, Scott has an online community ready to feed into his distrust and his grip on reality starts to slide, dragging his family with him. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Livia can’t support or even understand her husband’s perspective. In fact he’s become a danger to his children and she must protect them, whatever it takes. This is a brilliantly drawn study of how social media can lead to obsession and allow sinister, unscrupulous people to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. It’s also a painfully accurate depiction of marriage breakdown and a perfect book club choice.

This was another book where marriage breakdown is depicted in painstaking detail. It reads like a thriller where different perspectives and revelations constantly change our perceptions of a situation. It’s like a whodunnit, except the death we’re mourning is the death of a relationship. Bea and Niklas have been together for thirty years and live a comfortable life in Stockholm with their children. Yet one night, after what feels like a trivial argument Niklas walks out and doesn’t come home. Weeks pass where Niklas takes a break and Bea is constantly pushing for answers, but when he returns to their flat he stuns Bea by asking for a divorce. For Bea this has come completely out of the, but is it as unexpected as she claims? Bea narrates the first half of this novel and halfway through the narrative returns to the beginning and Niklas tells us his version of events, which is very illuminating and may change the readers mind about their marriage. This is a simple device that works to devastating effect. I felt genuinely sad for this couple, because neither of them are bad people. It explores boundaries and the unhealthy reasons people can end up together. It’s also a response to grief, beautifully played out over decades. Utterly brilliant.

This is the fifth instalment of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodysson series and it was an absolute cracker. Tuva is investigating further north from Gavrik to an even more isolated town on the edge of the arctic circle. Essleburg is a town where everyone knows everyone else and there’s only one way in or out. A huge tunnel under a mountain provides access to the town, but closes down at night. Once you’re in, you’re in for the night and so is everyone else. From her hotel room at the sun-bed store Tuva sets out to look for a missing teenage boy, drawn by the fact that he is also deaf. But when bodies are found Tuva must face facts, the boy could be one of the victim and if not, could he be the killer? With it’s usual quirky characters and alien landscape, Tuva’s world is as isolating as it is disorienting. As usual Will Dean knows when to ratchet up the tension and when Tuva is in danger it’s absolutely heart-racing stuff.

As all of you know I’m a massive Skelf fan and this addition to the series was brilliant. Every Skelf novel begins with a funeral and they rarely go off without a hitch. This one is no exception, with a drone buzzing the ceremony and it’s guests. Could it be to do with the deceased or has someone got it in for the Skelf women? Jenny’s case follows on from the last book and the cops they investigated for sexually abusing young girls in the travelling community. Both are inexplicably out on bail and Jenny likes to know where they are at all times. Daughter Hannah’s case concerns Brodie the new recruit to the undertaking business. Brodie finds strange scrabbled marks around his baby son’s grave and Hannah sets up a camera, but when told that Brodie hears voices she wonders if he might have gone to the grave and acted subconsciously. Dorothy’s case comes from her involvement with a community choir that includes some Ukrainian war widows. One of the women, Yanna, has gone missing. Her husband Fedir was killed over a year ago and now she’s left her two small children with her mother-in-law. Could she have returned to Ukraine to fight, or has something happened to her? Each of the Skelf women feel vulnerable this time and I felt like the author was playing on my emotions a little. I could sense we were on the verge of a huge change and it left me on tenterhooks throughout.  

I absolutely loved this book. From the very first line – ‘there is someone in the house’ – this book grabs you and never lets go. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her? The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique the narrator’s unique voice. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – the heart-stopping tension of that first night with it’s immediate threat renders everything else unimportant. I should trust what she is experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: one is harsh and angry the other is soft, wheedling – a voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. Her little girl identifies him as ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares. Often sitting in the corner of her bedroom at night whispering to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? Yet I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions. The author plays with the reader beautifully from start to finish.

Surprisingly this was my first Peter May novel and is a sequel to his crime novels set in the Hebrides. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis by family, when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. When it emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior he becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. He must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He must also, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as they started to expand on the island and become a multi-million pound industry. This is Finn’s journey, of family ties, secret relationships and the bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and old loyalties converge.

Frances McGrath is your typical All American teenage girl, living with her family on Coronado Beach, California. She has memories of growing up on that beach, swimming and surfing with her brother Finley. She is from a good family and expectations are that she will have the ‘right’ marriage and become a mother. However, things change when Finley makes a huge decision; he decides to enlist for Vietnam. It’s no surprise that he might go into military service at some point. Frankie’s dad has a wall in his office called the ‘Hero’s Wall’ where every family member’s military service is celebrated with cuttings, photos and medals. All the men, anyway. Yet not many of their friends and family members have sons who’ve voluntarily enlisted for Vietnam. There are ways of avoiding the draft, depending on who you know. Yet Finley enlists of his own accord, possibly believing the American government’s assertions that they must fight communism in Vietnam, lest it become even more widespread. Within weeks there’s a knock at the door; Finley has been killed in action. In a whirlwind of grief Frankie starts looking into her options. She wants to honour her brother and become a hero worthy of her father’s wall. Both the Air Force and Navy need a nurse to complete a long period of training before they’re posted to work in the field. However, if she enlists in the US Army, they’ll post her out to Vietnam after basic nursing training. Much to her parent’s shock Frankie is soon on her way to Vietnam. This is an incredible story about the horrors of war, falling in love and giving voice to the women forgotten in military history.

There have been some incredible historical novels this year, but I really was blown away by this story set just after WW1 and progressing to the mid-twentieth century. Two German sisters, Leni and Annette, live in Berlin and when we first meet them they’re in dire straits, living in a makeshift shelter in an abandoned garden. Thanks to war and the influenza epidemic they’ve lost their family. Leni gets a chance to earn some money at a notorious and rather seedy cabaret club called Babylon Circus. The naive and rather shy Leni becomes a cigarette girl in a second hand and pinned costume that just covers her modesty, but she is at first shocked by what she sees. With shades of the musical Cabaret the author creates a club that is a mirage of clever lighting, fairground mirrors and risqué musical numbers. It’s enchanting by dark and unwelcoming by day, but it doesn’t matter because this is the type of fun that can only be had at night. Everything is overseen by owner Dieter, a man with his own disguise having left half his face on a battlefield. When pianist Paul arrives, he and Leni start to gravitate towards each other. But Paul has a plan to leave Berlin and he would like to take Leni with him. We then move forward to the Cold War and a divided Berlin, where Annette has travelled from America to visit her sister and niece. The tensions and secrets of the Babylon Circus years still hang over the sisters, can they come to terms with the choices they made back then? Can Leni find a second chance of happiness? The author depicts her characters and the time period perfectly, with so much atmosphere. It’s an absolute must read.

Another amazing story set in Berlin is Josie Ferguson’s The Silence In Between. Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child…

Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine. When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and her world – in two.
Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother, but perhaps she can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home. The author takes us effortlessly back and forth in time to understand this family and  my heart kept breaking for them over and over for. While I struggled to read it at first, I’m so happy that I went back to it because it was breathtaking. It was as if someone had bottled both moments in time and simply poured them onto the page, raw and confronting. This is an absolute must read for historical fiction fans and a book I will definitely go back to in the future. 

Thanks for reading part one. Part 2 is coming tomorrow.