Tag: Mental Health

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: A Work of Art

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Artists are an endless source of material for novelists and have fascinated me for most of my adult reading life. I think we afford artists the right to behave badly, because what they do feels like alchemy. To be able to take mere pen and paint and turn it into something that’s beautiful or utterly new is magical to someone like me who can only just manage to sketch something if I have lots of time and patience. I stick to colouring for my artistic endeavours. If I think about it I’ve been going to art galleries since my teenage years when the chance to see Klimt’s work at Tate Liverpool was too exciting to pass on. I loved ‘The Kiss’ but this exhibit took his work and placed it into the context of the secessionist movement, just one branch of Art Nouveau. I continued to visit exhibits on Art Nouveau, at the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow to see the Glasgow School exhibits, The Met in New York a few times, as well as the Guggenheim there and in Venice. I visited London for many exhibits at the V and A and the Tate including Lucian Freud, a painter I’ve come to appreciate more recently. One of my great loves are the Pre-Raphaelites, since having the chance to study their work at university. We visit my mum’s hometown of Liverpool very frequently and I’m a regular at the Walker Gallery and Lady Lever gallery in Port Sunlight both of which have a great collection of Pre-Raphaelite work. Artists are often unconventional, have complicated love lives and some have a reputation for being hellraisers. Is it any wonder that we love to read about them? I usually jump at the chance and have quite a collection! here are a few of my favourite novels that feature painters.

Mistral’s Daughter by Judith Krantz

I have a very cracked and broken copy of this novel and I’ve read it several times. I blame it for starting my fascination with painters, I used to swipe it off mum’s bookshelves when I was a teenager. It’s romantic and sexually explicit, two things teenagers are definitely interested in! It follows the story of three generations of women from Paris to New York. We first experience Maggie Lunel’s journey to become an artist’s model. She is chosen by Julian Mistral and becomes his muse, as well as his lover until his ego and arrogance make her walk out. Years later, Maggie’s daughter Teddy is working as a fashion model. Her father Perry Kilkullen was the last man Maggie would fall in love with. Teddy has a job in France posing with artists for a fashion shoot and as soon as she poses with Mistral it is love at first sight. Mistral is married, but he leaves and sets up home with Teddy, never returning to America. Fauve Lunel is Mistral’s daughter, brought up with her grandmother Maggie she visits Mistral in the summer at his villa in the south of France. Fauve is a talented artist and begins to look into her family roots, finding out they are Jewish. When she realise Mistral might have been a collaborator during WW2 the revelation tears father and daughter apart, will they ever reconcile? This is a great story, romantic and bit racy too.

The Marriage of Oppositesby Alice Hoffman

As you all know by now, I’m a big fan of Alice Hoffman, but when I first picked up this novel on publication day I found it was very different from her usual books. We always expect to find strong women in Hoffman’s novels but there’s usually an element of magic realism to her work. Our heroine Rachel is definitely a strong woman, but magic takes a back seat for this novel that reads more like an biography. Rachel lives on the stunning island of São Tomé or St Thomas and is the mother of Camille Pissarro, one of the founders of Impressionism. Rachel is brought up with a strict Jewish faith, but she has always dreamed of getting off the island and going to Paris. Unfortunately Rachel has no choice and is married off to a widower with three children. Nevertheless she makes of the best of things until her husband dies suddenly. When his nephew Frédéric comes from Paris to settle the will and there is an instant spark between them. For once Rachel decides to make decisions for her own life and begins a passionate affair. The scandal that ensues when they marry has the whole island in uproar, but Rachel stands firm and will not be moved. This is a beautiful story, set on a lush island that’s described in gorgeous detail by Hoffman – she made me want to go there. I loved her relationship with her son and hoped that one day she would get to go to Paris as she dreamed.

Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale

Set in the beautiful county of Cornwall, around Newlyn and Penzance, this is the story of a family struggling with secrets, brought back to the place they were born after a tragedy. Their mother, celebrated artist Rachael Kelly, is found dead in her Penzance studio after struggling with the creative highs and devastating lows that have coloured her life. As her family try to make sense of their mother’s life and it’s effect on them, devastating secrets come to light. As always with Patrick Gale the level of empathy in this book is incredible, he understands how different people think and respond to events. His depiction of mental illness is so authentic and heart-breaking. Rachael’s bi-polar disorder is the source of her art, but Gale also explores how it affects the rest of her working life and how it impacts on her family, especially her children. This is a favourite of mine and I’ve read it several times, but it never loses it’s power.

The Flames by Sophie Haydock

I devoured this brilliant book by Sophie Haydock, where she takes four women painted by artist Egon Schiele. Set in Vienna in 1912, on the back of the secessionist movement and artists like Gustav Klimt, Schiele paints four women and Sophie gives them a voice. Gertrude is in awe of her brilliant older brother, often posing for him but envying his freedom and agency. Then there’s Vally, a model for Klimt who’s trying to work her way out of poverty. Then sisters Edith and Adele move into the apartment building opposite Schiele’s in Vienna. The daughters of wealthy parents, they are not the type of girls who usually model for an artist and are expected to marry well. Yet both become embroiled with Schiele, professionally and privately. A portrait is always how the artists sees or wants to present you to the world, here the women step out from behind that image and tell their own story.

The Paris Muse by Louise Treger

Louise Treger’s 2024 novel concerns the life, or more accurately the love, of Dora Maar – a photographer and painter who lived in Paris for most of her life and most notably, during the German occupation in WWII. Born Henrietta Theodora Markovitch in 1907, she was known as a surrealist photographer exhibiting alongside Dali and other notable surrealists. She used her photographic art to better represent life through links with ideas, politics and philosophy rather than slavishly photographing what was naturally there. She was exhibited in the Surrealist Exposition in Paris and the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936. In the same year she was exhibited at MOMA in NYC. She first encountered Picasso while taking photos at a film set in 1935, but they were not introduced until a few days later when Paul Elduard introduced them at Cafe des Deux Magots. They met in quite a dramatic way that showed her intent to catch his eye. She sat alone and using a pen knife she drove the blade between her splayed fingers and where she missed, blood stained the gloves she wore. The fact that Picasso kept these gloves and packed them away with his treasured mementoes is a metaphor for their entire relationship – he fed from her emotions. The author allows Dora to tell her own story and we are inside her mind at all times. We could say this is only her viewpoint of their relationship, but in a world where she is most known through her relationship with a man instead of her own work, Treger is simply redressing the balance. This is tough to read in parts, showing the ego of Picasso and how his call for freedom in their relationship, means his freedom. I felt sad for Dora, possibly influenced by some of my own experiences. She seemed like a smaller woman at the end with none of her original vitality and flamboyance. I’m so glad to know that her art lives on and is still exhibited as part of the surrealist canon. 

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

WELCOME TO ERIS – A TIDAL ISLAND WITH ONLY ONE HOUSE, ONE INHABITANT, ONE WAY OUT. . .

A place that is unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day. Once the hideaway of Vanessa, a famous artist whose husband disappeared twenty years ago. Now home to Grace. A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation. Local GP Grace, often referred to as Vanessa’s companion or friend, might have inherited Eris. However, Vanessa’s artworks were left to an art foundation set up by her first agent. The curator of the foundation is Becker, hired for his expertise in Vanessa’s work. He is under pressure from the new owner to extract the last of Vanessa’s work from Eris. They have tried polite enquiries, legal letters and ultimatums but they are sure this has all been in vain and that Grace is deliberately holding back. Now a situation has arisen with one of Vanessa’s found object installations already on display in the gallery. A visiting doctor is convinced that the bone suspended in a glass box is human. They withdraw the box from view and contemplate having to break it open to have the bone properly tested. The unspoken thought on everyone’s mind is whether this might solve the mystery of Vanessa’s missing husband? It’s an opportunity for Becker to tell Grace face to face, but also to address the missing works that must be on Eris. He feels this is the best way forward; a last ditch attempt before legal action. However, visiting Eris is not without it’s risks. Are all of it’s secrets and lies about to be uncovered? This is a great thriller, full of questions about what an artist needs to be able to create, who owns an artwork and when does friendship become obsession?

New Reads To Look Out For …

Sophie Haydock is delving back into the art world with her novel about the women surrounding the artist Matisse.

This is the story of three women – one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a father she adores. Amelie is first drawn to Henri Matisse as a way of escaping the conventional life expected of her. A free spirit, she sees in this budding young artist a glorious future for them both. Ambitious and driven, she gives everything for her husband’s art, ploughing her own desires, her time, her money into sustaining them both, even through years of struggle and disappointment. Lydia Delectorskaya is a young Russian emigree, who fled her homeland following the death of her mother. She is trying to make a place for herself on France’s golden Riviera, amid the artists, film stars and dazzling elite. Eventually she finds employment with the Matisse family. From this point on, their lives are set on a collision course. Marguerite is Matisse’s eldest daughter. When the life of her family implodes, she must find her own way to make her mark and to navigate divided loyalties. Based on a true story, Madame Matisse is a stunning novel about drama and betrayal; emotion and sex; glamour and tragedy, all set in the hotbed of the 1930s art movement in France. In art, as in life, this a time when the rules were made to be broken…

Out from Doubleday on 6th March 2025

PROVENCE, 1920

Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle’s artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he’ll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe. But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers. Over this sweltering summer, everyone’s true colours will be revealed.

Because Ettie is ready to be seen. Even if it means setting her world on fire. This book will transport you straight to the south of France and straight to the heart of one woman’s rage.

Out on 30th Jan from John Murray Press.

Posted in Netgalley

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Lila’s life is built on shifting sands at the moment. Lila is a single mum to Celie and Violet since her husband died revealed his affair with Mayja, a yummy mummy from the school gates. His betrayal was made worse by the fact Lila was promoting her book, on how to have a successful marriage. Her mum died recently and stepdad Bill and has slowly moved himself from their bungalow a few doors away, into Lila’s house along with his piano and healthy eating regime. To add a further unexpected surprise her biological father Gene turns up looking for a bed. Gene is a hellraiser, a drinking and partying actor whose claim to fame is playing the captain of a starship in a 1960’s sci- fi series. He’s still living off that fame and Lila is unsure whether she can trust him. Bill and Gene can’t stand each other. However, she gives him the sofa bed in her office, where she’s trying to produce three chapters of a new book that her agent is chasing. Lila wanted to write something honest, but the publisher is looking for the humorous and sexy exploits of a newly divorced woman. How can she write in one dad’s bedroom, while her other dad is practising his piano and planning garden renovations. Not to mention dreading school pick-up and having to see her husband’s girlfriend wafting around like a butterfly, waiting for her son Hugo. The final nail in the coffin comes when Mayja announces she’s pregnant. The last thing Lila feels like doing is pursuing romance, but to keep her agent and publisher happy and the roof over their heads she is going to have to come up with some sexy exploits. Enter Jensen the gardener and Gabriel the architect, but can Lila carve out any time for them or herself? 

Lila’s house is something quite rare in fiction, which sometimes feels full of American fridge freezers and Quooker taps. It has quirks like ancient coloured bathroom suites and a toilet that blocks regularly. Celie is 16 and clearly dealing with something at school that she won’t talk about. Violet has had to cope with a boy in her class now being her step-brother, not to mention no longer being the baby. Pressure builds for them all as Mayja becomes unwell and has to be at hospital until the birth of their baby. They are living of the last of Lila’s money from her first book, but it won’t last forever and submitting one of the most raw and honest pieces of writing she’s ever done only to see it rejected, is very hard to take. I had my hear set on Jensen from the minute he came to do the garden because there’s no barrier or mask with him, what you see is what you get. As he and Lila start to talk about Bill’s plans for the garden, often sharing a brew outdoors and chatting, there’s a clear friendship growing. He’s so easy to talk to and remarkably open. Gabriel is his polar opposite in a lot of ways, there’s an instant attraction for Lila and a lot of messaging back and forth but I could sense that he wanted to be in control of their interactions. I am very wary of men who pick you up and then put you away when they’re done, like a worn and boring plaything. There’s a lot of humour in Lila’s attempts to gather sexploits for her book, but there’s clearly potential for people to get hurt too. I also learned a few terms, most notably ‘bread crumbing’ which I’ve been subjected to a couple of times. Similarly, a previous partner described me as ‘too much’ so I had a t-shirt made with ‘too much’ on it and wore it proudly, sad for myself that I spent time on someone who wasn’t enough. This is something Lila comes to realise, maybe Dan’s affair was a symptom of their relationship going wrong? If only she’d known it was ok to take up space.

‘She thinks sometimes that she always felt she was a little too much for him, too needy, too angry, too sad, too hysterical.’

I really fell in love with this family, as unwieldy as it is somehow it does work. I admired Lila, who tries her best to be on board with the changes in her life especially around her marriage. She knows that the girls will have a sibling but can she accept Dan and Mayja as part of that family? Their relationship does hurt her, but her feelings aren’t going to stop them becoming parents and she wants her girls to have a good relationship with the baby. I thought she was incredibly brave to try and put herself back in the dating pool, something I’ve always avoided. I used to say that if someone comes into my life that’s fine, but I’m not wasting my free time on people I potentially don’t like, especially when there are good books waiting on my TBR! Luckily my husband did just that. He walked (fell) into my front door and I feel like we’ve never stopped talking since. You can see the work Lila has done on herself as she dispenses little bits of wisdom on the way: 

The dynamic between Gene and Bill is funny too, it’s immediately antagonistic but their bickering made me smile. Bill is angry thanks to all the things Lila’s mother, Francesca, has told him and for his desertion of his wife and daughter. Bill sees Lila as his daughter and has never had any competition for her affections. There’s obviously a fear that Gene will pick Lila up and then drop her again, even worse there’s now Celie and Violet to consider. Bill has always shown love in the way he cooks healthy meals for the girls, picks them up from school and spends time with them. Gene wants to have fun with them, Violet is especially fond of snuggling up on the couch after school and watching her new Grandad’s old sci-fi series. Celie is more difficult to befriend, but Gene is surprisingly perceptive and works out what’s wrong, giving her good solid advice that works. Far from this being a bed for a couple of nights, Lila can actually see him fitting in with their family and that scares her. Especially when she finds out there are secrets about his relationship with her mother that surprise her and potentially hurt Bill. 

I read this books so quickly because I felt I was observing a real family, with all the chaos and the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with it. I loved that in a family with so many people, there was always someone who could be there for somebody else, like Gene is there for Celie. There’s so much acceptance in this novel and it’s a great message for a New Year where we are pushed into thinking we need to detox, eat less, go the gym, run 5k and all that other rubbish. Lila learns to accept the change in her life, but will she move on when she’s ready, rather than for a book deal? She also has to accept that a person can have huge flaws, but still have a place and the ability to be a support for others. Bill has to accept Francesca is not coming back and the Gene who hurt Francesca all those years ago isn’t the Gene in front of him now. Both the girls have to accept that they now share their father, but could build a new relationship with Mayja and their new sibling that enhances their life. There are so many breakthroughs here that I can’t list them all, but I did identify hugely with a scene where Lila finally takes some time for herself and has a massage, encouraged by her friend. In the final throes of my last relationship I visited a Bowen Therapist and had a similar experience. 

‘something wells in her, an emotion unlocked by the reality of another human being touching her, listening to Lila’s body, feeling its pain and its tensions and carefully remedying them. Suddenly, she feels a great swell of something overwhelming her. Grief ? Gratitude? She isn’t sure. She becomes aware that she is weeping, the tears running unchecked through the hole where her face is nestled, dropping onto the floor, her shoulders vibrating with an emotion she can no longer hold back.’

This was a beautifully written moment where someone is just there for Lila and the weight of holding everybody up can fall from her shoulders. It’s the first time she has taken for herself and all the emotions she’s kept in check can come out. I love how Jojo Moyes writes women and the mental load we carry for everyone around us. A load more exhausting than childcare, housework, career all rolled into one. Here she lets go and it’s the point at which she starts to rebuild her life. Does she pick the gardener or the sexy architect? I’ll leave that for you to find out. 

Out on 11th Feb from Michael Joseph.

Meet the Author

Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. The Giver of Stars is her most recent bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over thirty-eight million copies worldwide.

Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. Jojo lives in Essex with her family.

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I always jump at the chance to read a new Nicci French book. Also they’re so prolific that it’s easy to find earlier novels in charity shops. This novel is set in a Victorian house split into flats and it’s newest residents are Nancy and her boyfriend Felix. Nancy is recovering after a psychiatric episode and a stay in hospital. Thankfully her voices have subsided but she’s fragile and moving to a new part of London has been destabilising. After venturing out for a walk she starts to experience voices again and in her confusion she rushes back to the flat. At the front door she bumps into a young woman wearing very striking green boots with yellow laces. The woman speaks to Nancy but it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t help that she’s trying to distinguish between which voices are real. All she knows is that the woman was distressed and possibly needed help. Only 24 hours later the young woman is found hanging in the basement flat. Her name was Kira Mullan. Everyone seems sad that Kira committed suicide but for Nancy, something feels off. She isn’t sure that Kira did kill herself. How can she convince the others that she’s telling the truth when nobody trusts her?

This novel was absolutely gripping with brilliantly written main characters and a haunting central victim in Kira. I loved the idea of following the story through Nancy who has been struggling with her mental health and a clever, perceptive detective in Maud. The authors have cleverly placed Nancy on shifting sands – not only has she had a period of psychosis but she’s moved house and into an entirely strange area of London. She’s also lost her livelihood as a chef and could be living in a building with a murderer. She’s also without a touchstone in her life. I know exactly who to go to and ask whether I’m the asshole? I have friends who will tell the truth about whether I’m over-reacting or if something is genuinely wrong. This was invaluable when I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’d hoped that Nancy’s boyfriend Felix would be that person but I’d noticed a few red flags. He’s very attentive and seems to want her wrapped up in cotton wool, but Nancy is doing all the right things. On the day after she’s heard voices she asks to see the psychiatrist who changes the dosage of her medication and goes for counselling. She’s resting and doing her breathing exercises. In fact there’s very little else she can do. The authors leave us constantly wondering about her; is she paranoid or are the other residents out to get her?

Felix claims he only wants people to look out for her but Nancy feels like her space and autonomy are being encroached on. Felix tells the other residents everything about her history, including the psychosis, even the doctor who lives across the hall. He even gives next door neighbour Michelle their door key so she can let herself in, much to Nancy’s shock. His actions have actually left Nancy more vulnerable, leaving her open to abuse from others that they can deny. Who’s going to believe the mad girl? Nancy doesn’t think she’s paranoid but can see that her actions might seems excessive: she goes through Kira’s bin; steals a used condom from the flat and goes to look at the apartment with an estate agent; she also tells the police and Kira’s mother that she doesn’t think it was suicide. Just as she thinks she’s getting close to answers she is sectioned again after Michelle informs Felix that she threatened her. The authors show us how vulnerable mentally unwell women are in the care system and NHS, even though they’re designed to protect them. Not only is her liberty taken away and she’s prey to unscrupulous carers and nurses. In this upside down world, the more she protests her sanity the worse things become. She loses whole days to medication and is told by one male nurse that her life would be easier if she was ‘nice’ to him. So Nancy bites him. She has only one choice here. Be obedient, ignore the barbs and smile sweetly through visits she doesn’t want. It’s the only way she’ll be free. 

I loved the relationship between the detective Maud and Nancy. Maud is so perceptive and their experiences do mirror each other in a way. Maud knows that as a woman in the MET she is in the minority and she’s fully aware of the type of man that can be hiding behind a uniform or a title. In their respective institutions Nancy and Maud are trapped within a system they can’t change. Maud knows that if she becomes emotional or passionate about a particular case she will be seen as an irrational or hormonal woman. If she’s assertive and asks for what’s rightfully hers she’ll be called a bitch. In order to get the cases she wants and stand up for women like Kira and Nancy she has to play the game. It seemed to me that Maud saw the red flags with certain people whether in the flats or the house next door. She never holds Nancy’s illness against her and accepts that although she’s been struggling, she still might have something useful for solving the case. She also has a network of women within the system who will do her favours, such as looking over autopsy results and giving a second opinion. I loved the way she handles herself and her confidence in very dangerous circumstances. This was a gripping and psychologically brilliant read. I’d didn’t work out all of what had happened in Kira’s final days but the end was satisfying and I reached it very quickly because this is quite the page turner. 

Out in hardback from Simon & Schuster on Jan 16th 2025

Meet the Author

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

Posted in Netgalley

Into the Storm by Cecilia Ahern

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One wild night in the middle of December, local GP Enya is driving home from a house call in a dreadful storm and visibility is poor. She comes across a taxi parked in the middle of the road and a boy lying motionless on the wet ground. Oscar, the taxi driver, tells her he has just found the boy like this and he doesn’t know if he’s breathing. As the rain pours down Enya kneels in the road and performs CPR, desperately hoping she can save his life. After she’s questioned by the police and returns home she sits in the car for moment, soaked to the skin and thinks about her mother. Brigid, a rather eccentric and free-spirited woman, died at the age of 47 while swimming in the sea. For a while, as Enya battled to save the teenage boy’s life she felt the water running down her face and wondered if this was how her mother felt? Enya struggles in the aftermath of the incident and can’t seem to put it out of her mind. Is it because the boy was so like her son, of a similar age and wearing the same clothes? The storm propels her into huge life changes as she walks away from her loveless marriage and takes a job in the small town of Abbeydooley. There she lives in a remote spot, but with a rag tree in the garden that brings people from far and wide to tie their ribbons and fabric to it’s branches. Even though her days are filled with patients and she starts to make friends, that night in the rain just won’t leave her. As she looks out of the window at the sacred tree she is faced with the stories of all the people who’ve tied a memento there. Could it be time to face the truth of her own story as well as the memory of her mother? 

We meet Enya in the middle of a crisis and the night of the storm is really the breaking point of that crisis. Enya is 46 and the day after her 47th birthday she will be older than her mother ever was. She has always had the sense that her mother was still going before her but from that day it’s only her. Alone. The grief hits her like a tsunami wave. There’s also the matter of her marriage and living situation. Xander made me feel cold. He comes across as clinical and controlling. The house they live in doesn’t feel like a home to Enya. Their home was the new build that she poured all her effort into, it’s where she had Ross and where she learned him to ride a bike in the garden. Now it’s their GP surgery and they’ve lived in Xander’s inherited family home ever since his parent’s death. There is nothing of Enya in the house and every ornament and painting is exactly where it was when Xander was a boy. If she moves the coat rack slightly or repositions an ornament it is soon quietly placed back where it should be. He even controls her relationship with Ross, having chosen his boarding school and at home telling her not to disturb him when all she wants is to spend time with her son. There’s an invisible barrier there and I could feel her sense of powerlessness. Enya has been struggling for some time: feeling overwhelmed at work; making small mistakes with forms and requests; desperately trying to find an escape, somewhere she can breathe. She has also struggled to let the injured boy go and has visited the hospital and made contact with the boy’s mum. When the offer comes to relocate to Abbeydooley she jumps at the chance. 

Her introduction to Abbeydooley life isn’t a smooth one. The tree is baffling to her. It has filthy and torn rags all over it and completely obstructs her view from the window, taking all her light. She sees it as an eyesore and asks the maintenance person to come out and remove it. Margaret is a brilliant character and the women don’t get off to the best start. Margaret has assumed the tree is damaged and turns up the next morning with a chainsaw, but when she sees the tree is intact she refuses to touch it. Doesn’t Enya realise this is a rag tree, a sacred tree that’s watered by a spring from the site of the original abbey? People believe it’s a sacred site, that their prayers will be answered if they leave something to represent the person or problem they’re facing. It seems ridiculous to Enya, especially when a tour mini-bus arrives with a group of pensioners excited to see this symbol of pagan traditions. Alongside this observance of pagan religion, Enya also has to contend with the church. A visit from the parish priest makes her realise that traditionally the GP and priest have worked quite closely together, sharing information and forming a team to help parishioners and patients. Enya is reluctant, but is starting to learn that in these remote rural areas being a GP is a very different thing to the app led computerised system she and Xander used. Maybe she will have to adapt to a new way of working and living. 

The whole book is a combination of a woman trying to find her way in the world and navigate emotional challenges, with a darker mystery woven in. The backdrop of Abbeydooley is almost like the light relief in the story, with it’s old-fashioned ways and humorous characters like Handyman Willy. I wondered whether it would be a redemption arc, where the town’s quirky ways would win Enya over and change her life. However it’s more complex than that. Abbeydooley becomes a space for Enya to breathe and think, but her demons have definitely followed her. We’re not sure whether she’s a narrator we can rely on. It’s not Xander’s opinion or the little slips at work that concerned me, it’s more about her rising paranoia and the small reveals that prove she isn’t telling us everything. When an agitated man turns up at the surgery to confront Enya we have no idea who he is or what bearing he might have the story. She sees another man through her window late at night, are they the same man or is someone making a late night visit to the tree? All this time Xander keeps her from her son so she’s reduced to leaving voice notes for him in the hope he’ll listen to them alone. Xander claims he’s protecting their son, but from what? I really enjoyed Margaret because she sees Enya at her worst and remains her friend. Margaret knows what it’s like to make a mistake and blow your own life apart. So she’s the best person for Enya to spend time with. What I found sad is that Enya has had support there all along. Although Xander has slowly controlled her, she has allowed her life to restrict her to the point where she felt her only choice was total escape. Yet she has her sister and brother-in-law, they are warm and welcomed her into their home when she first left. She could have made changes, been closer to her son and faced up to everything. Enya seems like a person who runs away: from grief, from her marriage, from the truth. I didn’t always understand her as a character, but her journey was fascinating. With my counsellor head on I wanted her to find a way to break free from all the restrictions she placed on herself. She would certainly make a fascinating client.

Meet the Author

Cecelia Ahern is an Irish novelist who wrote her debut novel PS, I LOVE YOU at the age of 21 years old, which was published in 2004. It became one of the biggest selling novels in recent years and was made into a hit film starring Hilary Swank, as was her second novel LOVE, ROSIE starring Lily Collins. She is published around the world in 40 countries, in over 30 languages and has sold over 25 million copies of her novels. She has published 19 novels, including a Young Adult series FLAWED and PERFECT, and the highly acclaimed collection of short stories ROAR. Her 20th novel INTO THE STORM will be published in October 2024.

She is the co-creator of TV comedy series SAMANTHA WHO? starring Christina Applegate and ROAR, the TV series, is streaming now on Apple TV+ starring Nicole Kidman.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Lifeline by Libby Page

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Libby Page novels always touch on interesting and difficult subjects, but through a very cosy lens – a balance that’s very hard to achieve. Her focus is women’s lives and here our main characters are Kate and Phoebe, both of whom are going through big life changes. Kate has recently given birth to daughter Rosie and moved from London to a small village, nearer to her family. Kate and her husband wanted Rosie to grow up with a garden and to spend time with her wider family. While her husband sets up his photography business, Kate has found the first few months of motherhood hard and hasn’t bonded with her daughter in the way she hoped. She’s also missing her job in journalism, her best friends and the buzz of her London life. Phoebe has lived in the village for a while, in a flat above some shops with her boyfriend Max. She is a mental health nurse with flame red hair and visits her patients on a motorbike. It’s all change when Max decides he’s leaving and takes all the furniture. Phoebe doesn’t give herself time to process the break-up and keeps pushing herself to visit patients. She doesn’t realise that right now, she also needs help. Could the village’s wild swimming group be what both women need to restore them back to themselves? 

I was immediately attracted to the character of Phoebe, having worked in similar roles most of my life. I thought this was a slightly sugar coated version of mental health work, that touched some of the realities without changing the feel of the book. It did show that no two days are the same and the difficult juggling act of seeing regular patients when another has a crisis and needs to seen immediately. Phoebe is very conscientious and usually ends up working longer hours and eating into her own downtime to ensure everyone is seen. I could see Phoebe was heading for burn out, always putting her own needs last and missing the people and activities that restore her soul. Ive never had a baby, but I have seen what a seismic change it is from my friend’s experiences. Their world’s shrink because they’re so overwhelmed by this small person who is so dependent on them. I didn’t always understand why friends hadn’t called or couldn’t come to events, but having stepdaughters has made me realise how all consuming parenthood is. I’ve definitely seen less of friends and sacrificed my own needs for theirs, and babies need so much more. What I noticed about both women was how difficult it was for them to admit they’re struggling. Phoebe is conditioned by her job to always put someone else first. Kate has been influenced by the Instagram yummy mummies and the perfection of her sister’s life. She feels inadequate next to them, not realising that social media is edited to show the best photos and most interesting experiences. It’s a case of comparison is the thief of joy. Could both these women change their lives by finding a moment for themselves by the river? 

The story is set in an idyllic little village with cozy details like a coffee and cake van down by the river, an Italian deli under Phoebe’s flat and picturesque stone cottages. It’s clearly affluent but as Phoebe’s clients show, sorrow and illness can come into any home. It’s these cute and cozy details that make the book feel like a warm hug. I loved the camaraderie of the wild swimming group and the way they all pulled together when their swimming spot is threatened due to contaminated water. There’s a touch of romance too, in the rather gorgeous shape of Italian Luca from the deli. I enjoyed the humour too, especially the bridal boutique incident – the most disturbing boutique incident since Bridesmaids. Above everything it’s the female friendship that absolutely sings in this novel, confirming something I know to be true; it’s the women in our lives that hold us up when we fall, celebrate when we’re happy and stick with us through the seismic changes women experience in life. 

Meet the Author

Libby Page is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lido and four other warm-hearted novels. She lives in Somerset, England with her family. Before becoming an author she worked in journalism and marketing. When not writing she can be found reading, and swimming outdoors.

Posted in Netgalley

The Salt Flats by Rachelle Atalla

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Fin and his wife Martha are travelling in South America. Their eventual destination are the salt flats in Bolivia, an other worldly natural phenomenon where the horizon becomes endless and you’re standing in the sky. Martha and Fin are not just sight-seeing, although the urge to take photographs and capture the illusion is strong. Having been together for 11 years, lately they’ve struggled as Martha has been in the grip of an obsessive anxiety over the climate crisis. They are booked into a retreat on the salt flats, found by Martha and extortionately expensive, it promises a transcendent experience using salt to purify mind and body. So the couple find themselves crammed into a pick-up truck alongside Rick and Barb, a middle aged and out of shape American couple, and partners Hannah and Zoe. They are now in the hands of their driver who doesn’t speak a word of English and an elusive shaman called Oscar. They will spend the next few days meditating, relaxing in warm salt pools and participating in a series of salt ceremonies where hallucinogenic visions bring them face o face with their subconscious reality. Yet the final ceremony descends into chaos, Martha and Fin need to grapple with Martha’s anxiety and the moral implications of their trip. As for their marriage, could this nightmare bring them together or are some wounds too deep to heal?

I’ve been fascinated with the salt flats after seeing them on an episode of World’s Most Dangerous Roads. It was incredible to see the sky reflected in the shallow saltwater surface, giving the impression of standing in the sky. It’s an image recently repeated on Race Across the World and even on a small screen it’s an incredible landscape. The author recreates that otherworldly and alien environment so well, creating an atmosphere of dislocation from the normal world even before any hallucinogens. It struck me as an odd place for a spa or well-being centre, something I always imagine as comfortable and with lush surroundings. This landscape is hard and barren. It left me dubious about the benefits of such a place and how professional it would be. As they’re collected by a taciturn driver I half expected him to rob them and leave them in the middle of nowhere. When they break down en route it doesn’t help, giving an impression of something run on a shoestring in a very inhospitable place. The building is much less luxurious than the group imagined, considering the high price they’ve paid to be there. It’s an igloo type structure built from blocks of salt. Even the beds in the dormitory have salt bases and the group are less than impressed to be sleeping in the same room. Each of the group have personal reasons to be there and the first salt ritual brings up themes of infidelity, assault and intrusive negative thoughts about the future. By confronting these issues, Oscar tells them they can process the trauma and move on. Trust has to build very quickly between the group who are letting each other into their personal spaces, both physical and mental. They’re baring their souls to each other. It’s clear that none of them will come out of this experience unchanged. Whether that’s a negative or positive change is hard to say. When Fin wakes up with a blooded face he is completely confused about how he got there. He knows he interacted with Zoe and that Barb had an accident, but the rest is fluffy and unclear. Where is the blood from and what horrors has he blacked out from his memory. 

I didn’t bond with all of the characters but I was definitely intrigued by them. I could understand why all of them needed change in their lives. It was easy to understand Martha’s concerns about the direction the world is taking. Although her preoccupations are with climate change, Brexit, Covid and wars breaking out across the world have left me with anxieties about the future, especially for the younger members of our family. It only takes a few swipes of the iPad to see how climate is changing the lives of those in low lying countries. However, that proximity to information can radicalise people as the most extreme viewpoints shout loudest online and I felt this had happened to Martha. Finn couldn’t keep living with constant anxiety about the future and needed Martha to meet him in the present every so often. The author’s depiction of their relationship felt very real, showing how people in long term relationship can change over time. Sometimes out takes a conscious choice to re-commit to that person or a bit of compromise that reminds why you committed to each other in the first place. Agreeing to the salt spa was Finn’s act of commitment, to show that he can give Martha a little of what she needs in the hope it will be enough. However, he ruins that a little with his scepticism and his shock at how spartan the spa is for the money spent. As horrors start to unfold will he blame Martha or will everything they’ve experienced bring them closer together? That’s if they both get out alive. The monumental stupidity of allowing themselves to be taken into the middle of nowhere at the mercy of people who don’t speak their language and have taken a huge chunk of their savings, starts to sink in. As things start to unravel you won’t be able to put this fascinating debut down.

Out Now from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter based in Glasgow. Her debut novel The Pharmacist was published by Hodder & Stoughton in May 2022.

Posted in Netgalley

Lights Out by Louise Swanson

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The Government have declared a state of emergency in this tense and thought provoking thriller from Louise Swanson. They’re introducing a temporary policy of electricity rationing, so at 8pm every night the lights and all other electrical power will turn off. For Grace this is her worst nightmare, because she’s terrified of the dark and no reassurance or safety measure from her husband is going to change that. She knows that at some point she will be forced to face the dark alone. An experience of being enclosed in the dark as a child has left it’s mark. All she can do is take as many night shifts at the hospital as possible, where they’re exempt from the switch off. In the house she will have to carry a torch and try to be alone as little as possible. When the switch off comes it’s effects are worse than she could possibly have imagined. Someone is coming into her home. Late at night when she’s shivering under the covers, too scared to move. Someone is leaving behind strange gifts – a third goldfish is swimming beside Brad and Jennifer in the bowl, a horrible painting of a dragon has replaced her own photo on the stairs, a pair of candlesticks in the kitchen. With them he leaves a strange and unsettling note: 

‘I have you in my sights. Love, the Night.’

Where can Grace feel safe if not in her own home? She’s an interesting character, clearly badly affected by childhood trauma and the memories of her previous, abusive relationship. The author opens with a first person account of being locked in a small pitch black space, it’s so vivid I could feel her fear. Grace tells us she was locked in a cupboard by the other children at school, where they continue taunting her until she wets herself. Since then she has always kept the lights on after dark and her partner sleeps in an eye mask to avoid the constant light. She also works at night where she can and sleeps in the day at home. She works as a carer in the hospice, spending a lot of time sitting beside those who are close to death, once her other tasks are completed. She didn’t go to university because she had a baby boy while very young and he has recently left home to live with his partner. Grace moved in with her own boyfriend and he has promised to be home in time for first big switch off. However, when she’s counting down the minutes, torch in hand, her partner is nowhere to be seen. 

The author shows brilliantly how even a strong and capable woman can be triggered by something that others barely notice. She touches on how the lights out policy affects the wider population – hypothermia in the elderly, rotting food defrosting and causing waste, a rise in crime. For others the lack of power has some positives, people can’t hide or be distracted by screens and communication within families will improve. Grace has been a single mum and she works well with people who are dying, so we know she isn’t scared of the big stuff. So why has one experience from childhood left such a huge impression? Her mother had always hoped she’d grow out of it and now the twelve hours of darkness must surely mean she must face the fear? It’s like state sponsored exposure therapy. Then ‘the night’ starts visiting and suddenly the dark covers up worse fears, new ones that are very real indeed. Even worse, her night visitor isn’t breaking in, so surely they must have a key. She is unsure how to deal with it and ringing the police is pointless when they’re dealing with a darkness induced crime wave. 

In between Grace’s sections of the story we meet a man who is in therapy. He left me feeling very on edge and I found myself wondering how I’d react if he were my client. He seems very unaware how counselling works, despite it being a fairly common concept these days. He also responds strangely to the therapist’s standard introduction. He fidgets, stands and paces round the room and I was uneasy on the therapist’s behalf. He seemed agitated. He’s convinced that his girlfriend is seeing another man. Is he paranoid? We have no idea how he fits into the story, but I was intrigued by him. Grace’s world becomes even more confusing when someone from her past turns up at the hospice as a patient. She knows she should disclose their connection, but if she does she knows she won’t be able to work with them. She decides to keep it to herself so she can sit with them. What clues, if any, might they have about her childhood and could what they know help her fear of the dark? As the pages turned I became more and more suspicious of her partner. Never home when he says he will be, distracted and very unsympathetic. I didn’t like him from the start and wondered if he was exercising coercive control over her. The moments when she’s under the covers with her heart racing as she hears her intruder moving around downstairs are truly terrifying. Yet he doesn’t seem malicious. He seemed to enjoy her fear and I even wondered if the night was closer to home than she thought. The truth was even stranger than expected and I found myself rooting for Grace, wanting her to get some resolution about her night visitor but also more long term relief from her phobia. That could only come from openness and facing the truth of her childhood and that time in the pitch dark cupboard. This is an enjoyable thriller with interesting insights on how childhood trauma affects us and how early relationships can inform the attachments we form in later life. 

Out Now from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

Louise Swanson’s debut, End of Story, was written during the final lockdown of 2020 – also following a family tragedy, it offered refuge in the fiction she created. The themes of the book – grief, isolation, love of the arts, the power of storytelling – came from a very real place. The second Swanson book will arrive in hardback and eBook spring 2024. Watch this space. 

Swanson, a mother of two who lives in East Yorkshire with her husband, regularly blogs, talks at events, and is a huge advocate of openly discussing mental health and suicide.

She also writes as Louise Beech. Beech’s nine books have won the Best magazine Book of the Year 2019, shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Polari Prize, and been a Clare Mackintosh Book Club Pick. Her memoir, Daffodils, was released in audiobook in 2022, and the paperback version, Eighteen Seconds, in April 2023..

Posted in Orenda

The Murmurs by Michael J. Malone

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I quickly became fascinated with this mix of historical fiction, psychological suspense and the paranormal. We meet Annie Jackson as she tentatively starts her new job in a nursing home in the West End of Glasgow, hoping to get her life back on track. Annie suffers with terrible nightmares where she’s stuck in a car underwater. She also has the sensation that someone is holding her head under water until her lungs feel ready to burst. She also has debilitating headaches and she can feel one threatening as her new manager introduces her to resident Steve. Then something very odd happens, as a blinding pain in Annie’s head is followed by Steve’s face starting to shake, then reform. A whispering sound begins in her head and she sees Steve as a skull, followed by a vision of him falling in his room and suffering a debilitating stroke. She desperately wants to tell him but how can she without seeming like a lunatic? He becomes agitated and upset, as Annie starts to describe the layout of Steve’s bathroom and he asks her to stop. As she’s sent home from another job she starts to think back to her childhood and the first manifestations of her debilitating problem. Annie survived the terrible car accident that wiped her childhood memories and killed her mother. This strange supernatural phenomenon is why Annie is alone and struggles to make friends. These are ‘the murmurs’. 

I felt so much compassion for Annie, as the story splits into two different timelines: we are part of Annie’s inner world as a child, but also in the present as fragments of memory slowly start to emerge. We also go back even further to the childhood of Annie’s mother Eleanor and her two sisters Bridget and Sheila. We experience their lives through other people’s stories and written correspondence, especially that of a nun who also works in a residential home. I enjoyed how this gave me lots of different perspectives and how the drip feed of information slowly made sense of what was happening in the present day. Different revelations have a huge effect on the adult Annie and because her memories have been buried for so long she experiences the shock and surprise at exactly the same time as we do. This brings an immediacy to the narrative and I felt like I was really there alongside her, in the moment. With my counselling brain I could see a psyche shattered by trauma, desperately looking for answers, she is piecing herself back together as she goes. 

Teenage Annie had a similar vision about a girl called Jenny Burn, who went missing never to return. The murmurs awakened when her mum’s sister Aunt Sheila came to visit them. She tried to openly discuss an Aunt Bridget who also had a ‘gift’ but has ended up in a home. Eleanor, Annie’s mother, asks Sheila to leave, but it’s too late because Annie has already seen that her aunt is dying of cancer. Annie evades her mum and makes her way to the hotel, the only place Sheila can be staying. Unfortunately, Jenny is working on reception. Annie can see her climbing into a red car and she desperately wants to warn her, but she knows she’ll come across as a crazy person. Eleanor is desperately looking for a way to deal with her daughter, she’s a person of importance in the church and she can’t be seen to have a daughter who has visions. Pastor Mosley has Eleanor exactly where he wants her. There’s a control and fanaticism in him that scared me much more than Annie’s murmurs. When Eleanor takes Annie to the pastor, he demonstrates his control by holding her head firmly under his head as he prays for her. When she almost faints, he’s convinced there’s a demon in her. Annie is scared of him, she gets a terrible feeling about him but doesn’t know why. Religion is portrayed as sinister and controlling, with fervent followers who never question, but live in the way they’ve been instructed is Christian? story takes an interesting turn when Annie’s brother Lewis, a financial advisor, becomes involved with the church once more and it’s new pastor Christopher Jenkins, the son of their childhood neighbour. He’s revolutionised the church and through the internet he’s turning it into a global concern. He’s not just interested in saving souls though, he’s also amassing money from his internet appeals. He also seems very interested in meeting Annie. 

As the book draws to a close the revelations come thick and fast as both past and future collide. The search for Aunts Bridget and Sheila seems to unearth more questions than answers. Annie finds out that Jenny wasn’t the only woman who went missing in Mossgaw all those years ago. As she starts to have suspicions about her childhood home, Chris seems very keen to draw her back there. Might he be planning a huge surprise? I was a bit confused at first with all these disparate elements, but as all the pieces started to slot together I was stunned by the truths that are unearthed. Then as Annie’s childhood memories were finally triggered I felt strangely terrified but also relieved for her all at once. I hoped that once she’d regained that past part of herself she would feel more confident and free, despite the strange gift she seemed to have inherited. Maybe by facing the past and leaning in to her relationship with her brother, she might feel more grounded and strong enough to cope with her ‘gift’. I thought the author brought that compassion he’s shown in previous novels but combined it with a spooky edge and some intriguing secrets. I really loved the way he showed mistakes of the past still bleeding into the present, as well as the elements of spiritual abuse that were most disturbing. This book lures you in and never lets go, so be prepared to be hooked.

Meet the Author

Michael J. Malone was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country, just a stone’s throw from the great man’s cottage in Ayr. Well, a stone thrown by a catapult, maybe.

He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings.

BLOOD TEARS, his debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize (judge:Alex Gray) from the Scottish Association of Writers and when it was published he added a “J” to his name to differentiate it from the work of his talented U.S. namesake.

He can be found on twitter – @michaelJmalone1

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/themichaeljmalonepage

And here’s my newsletter – subscribe for lots of cool stuff! – https://michaeljmalone.substack.com

Posted in Orenda

Black Hearts by Doug Johnstone

Posted on by thelotusreaders

As all subscribers and Twitter followers must know by now, I am a huge fan of The Skelf series. I’m a Skelfaholic and it’s become a strange cycle of waiting for the next book to be published, devouring it overnight then longing for the next one. It’s even worse this time because I have it on good authority that this might be the penultimate book in the series. So one more book and no more Skelfing! I’m going to be like a weasel with a sore head when I have to go cold turkey. It has been wonderful to be back in Edinburgh with this family: part private investigators, part undertakers and all round incredible women. For those who haven’t met them yet, the Skelfs are three generations of one family. Grandmother Dorothy is in her seventies, but is still active in both the investigative and the funeral parts of the business. In her spare time she still drums like a badass and has a lover almost twenty years her junior. Daughter Jenny is back home, living above the business and struggling with memories of psychopath ex- husband Craig. She’s drowning her pain with alcohol and sex. Jenny’s daughter Hannah is now a PhD student, working in the astrophysics department, but still finding time to help out. She’s now married to Indy, feeling settled and starting to move past what happened to her father. The women are brought some unusual cases, both for funerals and PI work. A gentleman approaches Dorothy after his wife’s funeral, to ask if they can help him with a nighttime visitor. He believes his wife’s spirit is punishing him and he has the bruises to prove it. Hannah is approached by Laura, a young woman who claims to know her, but Hannah has no recollection of her. When Laura starts to turn up wherever Hannah goes, she suspects mental health problems. She stops being harmless the closer she gets to the family, especially when Hannah drops into the funeral parlour and finds Laura talking to Indy. Laura wants them to do her mother’s funeral, but Hannah thinks it’s unwise. How can she let this fragile girl down gently? 

Aside from their cases Johnstone picks up those storylines that weave throughout the novels. In the main we are drawn back to Craig, Jenny’s ex-husband and Hannah’s father, who is still haunting the family. Jenny is most visibly affected by her interactions with Craig’s family, most notably his sister, who seems to have inherited his ability to manipulate and turn to violence to get what she wants. Will Craig ever leave them alone and will Jenny be able to tread the line between her own pain as his ex and Hannah’s pain as his daughter. Both tend to overlook the grief that Dorothy still feels at the loss of her own husband Jim, complicated now by her relationship with police detective Thomas. Indy’s grief is also overlooked a lot, especially since she’s just gone through disinterring her parents in order to give them the cremation in line with their faith. Hannah and Jenny bring the drama and it’s Jenny I was particularly worried about. She’s getting messy, day drinking and embarking on a highly controversial sexual relationship with the wrong person. She never wakes up feeling better, but in the moment she has to drown out the constant pictures in her head. This is PTSD and she’s in danger of drawing others into her drama, especially Archie who works for the funeral business. Can she rein in her behaviour? Even professional help seems doomed to failure at this point. 

Aside from these incredible women, and the lovely Indy of course, the things I most love about these books is Doug Johnstone’s love for Edinburgh and the way he weaves incredible ideas, philosophy and physics into his novels. I’ve not been to Edinburgh since I was in my twenties, but the way he describes the city makes me want to go back. He doesn’t sugar coat the place either, there’s good and bad here, but as a whole it’s a poem to a place that’s in his soul. Dorothy muses on her home town a lot in this novel and considering she was born in America, this place is her heart’s homeland. She ponders on the people this city produces, including her husband and child, the history, the architecture almost as if she’s taking stock. She concludes that she’s a person who always looks forward to where life’s going, but grief is like the tide and there’s no telling when those waves will wash ashore again. Jenny tends to frequent the less salubrious areas of the city. She’s stuck. Her past has quite literally washed ashore and the problem with losing someone is you’re not the only one grieving and everyone grieves differently. She’s not mourning Craig as he truly was. She’s grieving the loss of all that hope; the hope they both had for the future on their wedding day and when Hannah was born. Similarly Craig’s mum and sister aren’t missing the Craig who committed all those terrible crimes. Violet misses the little boy she had and the life she wanted for him and his sister misses her baby brother. Hannah seems to be the person most resigned to the loss of her father. She always seems older than she is and with Indy alongside her she has the support she needs. There’s so much wisdom in these two young women, honed from a combination of Indy’s spirituality, years of working with grieving families and Hannah’s physics knowledge, especially where it tries to explain the universe. The supermassive black holes that are thought to be at the heart of every galaxy are mysterious. We know that they have a huge power that acts like a magnet, drawing in items from across the universe. 

I loved the element of Japanese spirituality and having read Messina’s novel The Phonebox at the Edge of the World, I loved the concept of the wind phone. I’ve always thought that a good way of letting go of the past, especially when you’re struggling emotionally, is to make a physical gesture or step in the direction you want to go. That might mean taking off a wedding ring when you’re getting divorced, or moving house where it’s full of old memories. I found talking to my late husband in my head a bit strange and it only made me miss him more. So I wrote to him in my journal instead. To have a phonebox dedicated to speaking with those who have died seems a very effective way of keeping them in the present with you, but in a controlled and deliberate way. Samuel Beckett said: 

“Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.” 

Each of the Skelf women have their own grief to bear, a black hole at the centre of their heart. Each must find their own way to remember a little, to prevent becoming overwhelmed by their memories. Only by reconciling this, can they live in the present moment and make plans for their altered future. 

Meet the Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of fifteen novels, most recently The Space Between Us (2023). Several of his books have been bestsellers, The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, while A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015) were all shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last two decades including festivals, libraries, universities, schools, prisons and a funeral directors.

Doug is a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow and works as a mentor and manuscript assessor for many organisations, including The Literary Consultancy, Scottish Book Trust and New Writing North. He’s been an arts journalist for over twenty years and has also written many short stories and screenplays. He is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.

Posted in Orenda

The Big Chill by Doug Johnstone

Posted on by thelotusreaders

First posted on publication and being shared as part of #SkelfSummer.

How have I come this far in my reading life without reading Doug Johnstone? The Skelfs are the family I didn’t even know I was missing. To prepare for reading the second novel in Johnstone’s Skelf series, I made the decision to read the first novel entitled A Dark Matter. I couldn’t have imagined this incredible group of women, but now I feel like I know them personally. Set within the city of Edinburgh, this is a family of undertakers and private investigators. Just to set up the kind of family they are, the author places their residence and place of work at No 0 – somewhere that doesn’t exist. Grandmother Dorothy is a Californian lured to Edinburgh after falling in love with Jimmy Skelf who has passed away at the beginning of book one. Dorothy works in the funeral business with employee Archie, but also takes on PI duties and in her spare time teaches spunky young girls to play the drums. Mum Jenny is at a loose end so comes into the family business after her father dies. She jumps into the PI business with both feet, which is how she seems to do most things. Granddaughter Hannah is studying physics at Edinburgh University and lives with her girlfriend Indy. She has a good relationship with her parents and her grandmother. The first book concerns the disappearance of Hannah’s uni friend Mel and the shock when her killer is revealed is seismic, hitting all the Skelf family hard. 

The beginning of The Big Chill reads like the explosive ending of most books. In a scene as comical as it is tragic, Dorothy and Archie are overseeing a routine funeral at the cemetery when sirens start moving closer and drowning out the service. The guests and undertakers stare aghast as a van driven at high speed forces its way through the cemetery gates followed by the police. As the van careers towards them, mourners start to scatter and Dorothy narrowly misses being ploughed into ground, as the van speeds straight into the grave nose first. Dorothy clambers in to check on the driver and finds he has died instantaneously from a head injury. However, what does survive is a scruffy Collie dog she names Einstein to sit alongside Schroedinger the cat. She immediately offers the Skelfs’ services for the man she names Jimmy X but she would like to find a little more out about him before she conducts his funeral. So, Dorothy sets out, with Einstein in tow, to find out how Jimmy X ended up living in a van that literally ‘ended up’ in an open grave. 

Of course, this is only one of the mysteries the women are investigating. Hannah makes friends with an elderly physics professor at university when he asks if she’ll help with a memorial for Mel. Not long after they are performing dual duties for him too, when he dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Hannah can’t accept his death and even if it is just a displacement activity, begins to look into his personal life for answers. Dorothy is overstretched with cases when one of her drumming students doesn’t turn up for practice. This is so unusual because Abi loves to drum and has never missed a lesson. When she visits Abi’s home she is told that she was unwell, but Dorothy senses an undercurrent in the air and eventually finds our that Abi has run away. In order to find her, 70 year old Dorothy will have to start thinking like a 14 year old girl, which isn’t easy when the back ache doesn’t go away as quickly as it used to. The scars of her assault in the previous novel are not just mental. 

Hanging over them all is the trial of Mel’s killer, known intimately to the Skelf women and still keeping a hold over them where he can. Not only did he kill the pregnant Mel but when found out he attacked Jenny. He stabbed her in the stomach and beat Dorothy too. He has found a psychiatrist to claim he was incapacitated by mental illness at the time of the original killing. Even worse he lures Jenny to visit him, then presses charges when she assaults him. In the aftermath, Hannah is drowning. She’s well supported by Indy, but can’t sleep, feels anxious and when under pressure has panic attacks and passes out. It may take a seismic change to shake her from personalising all these difficult life experiences and thinking she is the only victim. She is having counselling, but there’s so much to unpick and she is in danger of ignoring the one person who helps her most. The women usually gather at the end of the day in the kitchen and catch each other up on the days events, but when even that ritual starts to fall apart Dorothy knows her family are stretched to breaking point. Yet, everyone has to heal in their own time and in their own way. She is wondering whether there is life after Jimmy, and whether her long held friendship and working relationship with a certain Swedish police officer, could become more? 

These women are great characters. They’re tough, but still vulnerable. Full of quirky detail and boundless energy. They are also wonderfully good at picking up ‘waifs and strays’. They try not to judge people. I loved Jenny, trekking round homeless shelters and approaching groups in the street, but stopping to pass the time of day or joining them in beer. As someone who is also very good at collecting people, I know how much it widens horizons, teaches us about our own preconceptions and sometimes brings unexpected but wonderful friends. Their arms and their home are open. I found myself thinking a lot about the wonderfully patient and wise Indy, who comes into contact with the Skelfs as a teenager organising her parents funeral after a car accident. She is always quietly working in the background: cooking mouthwatering curries when Hannah hasn’t eaten; taking the reins at funerals when private investigating takes over; listening to bereaved family and respecting the person who died with so much attention to detail. There are such hidden depths here and I found myself hoping that’s explored more in later novels. 

I loved the Edinburgh backdrop. In fact it becomes a character in its own right from the touristy areas, to the student quarter, to the areas that missed regeneration, this is such a varied and richly atmospheric city. I don’t know it well but I feel this has taken me under that tourist facade to find something more interesting. We also see such a variety of people from those on the streets to those who in academia or in private education. Death is a great leveller though and these people are often side by side once they reach Skelf’s undertakers. We also see that these extremes can all be found in one person; there isn’t a ‘type’ that becomes homeless or commits a murder. I also find the way Hannah makes sense of her world through science really interesting. She muses on quantum suicide and whether we, like Schroedinger’s Cat, can be alive and dead at the same time. People often think that science is anathema to concepts like faith, hope and a belief in God. However, there is beauty and wonder in everything Hannah knows about space. 

What I take away most from this book is the way the author writes with bluntness, but also kindness, acceptance and wonder about the human condition and the strange galaxy we call home. Hannah muses on the end of the universe with her counsellor: 

‘stars will stop forming, the sun will wink out, the solar system will collapse. Then in the black-hole era galaxies disband, all proton matter decays, supermassive black holes swallow everything, then they’ll evaporate too, all the energy and matter in the cosmos gone […] it’s called the big chill’. 

Hannah comments that it’s not such a bad way to go, but her counsellor reminds her that it’s a long way into the future. Dorothy has the same thoughts as her mind is flooded with images of everything they’ve experienced. She has felt the cold, icy creep of death: 

‘death so close that she could feel its breath on her neck, could smell it every day when she woke, could feel its icy touch spreading from her mind to her limbs’. 

So she sits behind her drums, plays the Black Parade album by My Chemical Romance, and starts to tap out a rhythm until she can feel the music within her, warming her veins and bursting to life. While we’re here we have to find a way to keep living. 

Shared as part of #SkelfSummer

Meet the Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of fifteen novels, most recently The Space Between Us (2023). Several of his books have been bestsellers, The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, while A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015) were all shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last two decades including festivals, libraries, universities, schools, prisons and a funeral directors.

Doug is a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow and works as a mentor and manuscript assessor for many organisations, including The Literary Consultancy, Scottish Book Trust and New Writing North. He’s been an arts journalist for over twenty years and has also written many short stories and screenplays. He is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.