Tag: Mystery

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads August 2026

Posted on by thelotusreaders

There have been some absolutely belting books this month and I loved telling you all about them. So I’ve been in the US, Italy, Greece Scotland and Sheffield. Oh I forgot about the ‘anti-verse’. It’s been a whirlwind of monstrous mermaids, a universe that goes backwards, the Greek civil war, a family dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, a crime writer who wakes up in a Sicilian villa with a dead body, a counsellor dealing with coercive control and a group of young boys trying to save their summer boy’s club. I’ve struggled to keep my mind on my reading to be honest it’s been a tough month. At the end of the last heatwave my cat returned home late one night and collapsed in the hall. I thought it was heatstroke and we tried to cool him but I could see he couldn’t put any weight on his back end. We rushed him to the vets where they diagnosed possible epilepsy. I knew this wasn’t right. She gave us some anti-convulsants but I wasn’t sure this was the right call. We kept him confined and on pain killers but he still couldn’t walk. I decided on a second opinion and went to a vet I used to see before moving house and he was brilliant. Poor Max had broken his pelvis in two places, his hip and damaged his lumbar spine. He also had a partially healed wound on his side. I can’t believe all that was missed. I could feel where his pelvis was pushed over, twisting his whole lower body. He’s had some surgery and lots of care at home. It’s going to take twelve weeks or more to fully settle. My husband has built him a three bedroom home under the stairs so he’s confined some of the time but can come out for exercise and fuss. My animals are my daily company now I don’t get out and about too well so they’re an important part of my life. I was so upset and I’ve really been focused on making him comfy and safe. So there’ll be lots of reading time in the upcoming weeks and I can’t wait be use it looks like an amazing autumn. I’ll share some recommendations for your tbr at the end. ❤️📚

I’ve been looking forward to this new release from Jodi Picoult and I was lucky enough to get it on NetGalley. I dived in and read it very quickly over a couple of days. My full review will be later in the week, but this was a fascinating read, bravely taking on some of the most contentious and sacred subjects in modern day America. We follow Molly, a young woman in her twenties who is incredibly driven and has the difficult job of coordinating emergency response in her state. Her job is not medical, it’s to prevent incidents and plan for potential disaster situations based on the geographical features of the area, possible targets and population. Having just got through COVID, Molly is happily settled down with husband Jesse close to her dad and stepmum. It’s easy to see that it’s the loss of her mother that has influenced Molly’s choice of career. Eloise was lost on 9/11 when she attended a medical appointment in the South Tower. Every year Molly takes the trip to NYC for the memorial ceremony and tucks a red ribbon behind her mum’s name, representing the one she always wore in her French plait. What Molly doesn’t know is that her own life is about to blow up unexpectedly, changing everything she’s ever known and challenging what she knows about motherhood and risk prevention. I thought this was a classic Jodi Picoult novel with dilemmas, big emotions and using different narrative voices to give us all sides of an argument. We think we know Molly’s story, but a different narrator throws all of that up in the air so unexpectedly. Reading Molly’s narrative I kept thinking “ah this is going to be about x” but I was wrong. There are strong issues here – mental health, abuse, cult mentality – and they are shocking, because they should be. Jodi Picoult has such an easy, conversational style and it was great to be back in the hands of a fantastic storyteller.

This is a great premise for a thriller and having been a therapist I’m always fascinated by books that are based on the therapeutic relationship. I think there’s a fascination in what therapist’s personal lives actually look like. Do they have it all sorted? The answer is invariably no and here there’s so much projection happening between Helena and her client Belle. Confidentiality is the bedrock of any therapeutic relationship, but that can get tricky when the therapist knows the client needs either specialist help or practical help. Helena is there to listen and guide Belle towards her own answers, but the constant disclosure of coercive control is uncomfortable to sit in. The urge to do rather than sit back and listen becomes difficult for Helena and it’s this discomfort that leads to her talking about it with best friend Tala. This is an issue for supervision, where Helena should disclose that she’s finding Belle’s passivity and indecision on leaving very difficult, but she doesn’t and now Tala is talking about how positive early responses have been to her new novel. Yet she doesn’t offer Helena a proof. When Helena stumbles across one at Tala’s flat she takes it and reads in horror as she realises Tala has fictionalised the problems of her client. This is going to be like a grenade in her personal and professional life.

The lives of Tala, Helena and her boyfriend Dylan and their paths into adulthood hinged on a single night. I thought the author managed these flashbacks well, placing them absolutely perfectly for maximum effect. It seems everyone has secrets but they are slowly revealed creating a very addictive read with short, pacy chapters that make you want to read just one more. The tension is almost unbearable as I worried about Helena overstepping with her client, the client finding out what’s in Tala’s book and somehow passing that on to her husband Julius. Would Helena be safe? As her well-ordered life starts to fall apart Helena starts to lose her belongings, forget her schedule and have terrible nightmares. She has no access to supervision and her relationship with Tala is broken. I wondered if she was heading for a breakdown. You may see the twist coming, but that doesn’t detract from the story. Eyes are opened, secrets past and present are revealed and I devoured the last few chapters late at night, unable to wait till the morning to find out what happened. This was an excellent thriller, full of psychological drama and really nailed the experience of being a counsellor with a problematic client. I also loved the ‘meta’ structure of reading a book about a book and just like Tala’s new novel this one should be a bestseller. 

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

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

I loved the first book in this series and I devoured this one in a day. Hannah is once again fretting over writing her latest book, disgusted that copies of the romance novel she poured her heart into is being ignored, while the crime novel she wrote in one month for a bet is a bestseller. Hannah is a brilliantly flawed character full of writer’s neurosis, hating that she is forced to write what will sell rather than the books she aspires to write. Again she’s on a deadline and as a last resort her editor Bastian finds her a quiet villa in Sicily with its own swimming pool. No distractions and plenty of time to unwind and write the novel she’s had an advance to produce. I love this character because she says and does the things I’d love to, but my inhibitions keep it inside. She has no such restrictions, happily saying what she thinks when she thinks it. Her disgust with the crime genre and Jorn Jensen in particular is so funny. I wonder if she has ever had a thought or need she didn’t express? She also seems totally unregulated. I would have asked the elderly couple who caretake the villa for help but Hannah decides to walk to the village without thought about the heat, how far and which direction home is in. She has no idea which hill to take and ends up exhausted and on the verge of sunstroke on her way back. This is where she is found by Hans and Greta who take her to their incredible house to clean up and drink something. This turns into dinner, wine and a night spent in their house. It’s when she wakes up in a strange place that she and the housekeeper Lucette find a dead body. Greta has been murdered and Hans is nowhere to be found. Has he been kidnapped or could he be the murderer? Hannah seems to have an inability to weigh up a decision before taking action. There’s so much going on in her head that it’s very hard for her to remain in the present. I’m always wishing she’d slow down a minute and breathe, but the only times she seems to do this are in water. 

The case is an absolute maze of connections and suspects showing up a tension between villagers and tourists, a misogynistic police force and possible Mafia interference. Despite Hannah’s aversion to crime as a genre, she’s just as caught up in the mystery of this murder as any reader would be. She’s utterly reckless, in a comical way and there’s a chase on a moped during the final chapters that is clumsy and hilarious to imagine. Sparks fly when Jorn Jensen appears, but she can’t deny he helps make things happen. His arrogance is brilliant and when he suggests they write a crime novel together I thought Hannah might hit him with something heavy. The creepy moment in the basement, including Jensen’s cardboard cut out made me laugh out loud. This is a dark humour that I love. Jorn’s statement that he has ‘enormous sex appeal’ and it’s that and not his wealth that attracts women shows what sort of brash and conceited character he is, but there’s no denying his bravery and quick thinking. They are quite the investigative team, despite her reticence about working with him. Hannah’s instincts are good. She won’t accept the police’s conclusion that Hans killed his wife, reasoning that he adored her and couldn’t have done it. Instead she follows the money, often blundering into compromising situations and dangerous people. If the conclusion teaches her anything it’s that people will murder for very unexpected reasons. This is a brilliant second instalment of Hannah’s adventures and I’m going to resolve to be a little more Hannah and say what I think here and there. 

I love when monster stories are given a retelling and in this one it’s a mermaid living in a loch, but not the Disney-fixed Little Mermaid we might be used to. Here she is a truly fearsome creature named Moireach with yellow eyes, sharp teeth, shiny scales and the drive of a predator. She lives in the loch, only changing after dark when she reverts back to her human form – Iris. As a young girl Iris defied her father and fell in love with Thane. He forbade their relationship, as the daughter of a laird she must marry well and for the clan’s gain not her own. Devastated she visits a witch hoping to be free of her father’s obligations, but the witch cursed her and she became banished to the loch by day. Now, some fifty years later, when Iris emerges she is still the beautiful girl of her youth. Thane has never come for her and as dead men have been discovered around the loch with their hearts ripped out, the name of the monster is on everyone’s lips. Her childhood friend Duncan, now an old man, knows it cannot be Iris. She isn’t capable. He hides her with all the love and loyalty he had fifty years earlier, even though she chose someone else. The laird has made a big decision, he’s hired a hunter of monsters, a man called Henry Cartwright and he has never failed to catch his prey. 

The backdrop of this story is perfect, using the mist, cold and breathtaking landscape to add to it’s mystery. There are parallels with Outlander here in the feel of this place, making good use of Scotland as a thin place where the paranormal, time travel and a history of monsters seems part of life. With the historical backdrop of the witch trials it’s also a dangerous place, particularly for a woman. Iris talks about the smell of the burnings and how women must be careful, but it’s no easier being a monster when men are turning up dead. The background of misogyny and brutal witch trials hangs over them all and shows a willingness to believe in magic, curses and female malevolence. It’s not just witches though, other fantastical creatures exist here like the seelies and selkies and there’s more one woman with powers a man would kill for. All of these things appear to be aligned with the nature that surrounds them and we can see that wildness as Iris changes to Moireach. It’s not just the yellow eyes and scales but the way her mind becomes that of a predator with only one goal. Reading this felt like being a child again and discovering a fairy tale rooted in darkness. Yes, some elements are fantastical, but it doesn’t read like fantasy. It’s more like a hybrid of historical fiction and fairy tales with aspects of a thriller. The pace speeds up as Iris begins to run out of time and we still don’t know why she was cursed, who cursed her and what will finally break it. There are those in the village who may seem kind, but could benefit from keeping Iris in her watery prison. As she takes us back to those fateful days in flashback, when her family were all together and her father didn’t yet know about Thane. I was engrossed with the tangled web of lies and betrayal but also by the question of what life Iris would choose if she could lift the curse. Would she pick the life she’d always wanted or had things changed? There are some unexpected revelations too, making for an exciting and absorbing conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this dark and feminist take on the mermaid stories we’re used to and I look forward to what the author writes next. 

I feel like I’ve been living under a rock because I’m the only book blogger who hasn’t read Frank and Red, so this was my first introduction to Matt Coyne. I don’t even follow him on social media so went in completely blind. This book was a gem from start to finish. Matt Coyne’s ability to write a novel with the emotional intelligence to balance weighty subjects like war and loss against laugh out loud comedy is akin to Sue Townsend and her wonderful creation Adrian Mole. Sister Francis is like my rather formidable previous schoolteacher, Sister Joan. She had the sharpness and discipline of a military veteran, but underneath that there was a twinkle that made me think there was a sense of humour and quick wit underneath. Sister Francis drives an old van as if she’s in a rally, always has a cigarette on the go and reads the racing post. I have always found nuns to be singular and quirky individuals so I warmed to her immediately. Although she’s a comic character there’s so much more to her. She’s clearly keen on restarting a boy’s club she used to run years ago, with origins of supporting boys who had lost their father in WW2. She has a way of relating to boys from the area and our four friends can see she’s a formidable ally from the first day. When they roll up to the clapped out shed they’re accosted by one of the local priests, asking what they’re doing hanging around the presbytery and accusing them of looking for things to steal. When Sister Francis bursts out of the shed he’s taken aback and the boys notice she uses her sweetest voice and emphasises the holy intentions behind her club, but as soon as he’s gone she lights up and is her sweary self. Behind this exterior are buckets of empathy and determination to help the boys in her care, not that she’s easy on them. The four boys have a deal with her, if they come and help her clean the club house on the last Saturdays of term they can come to the club in the holidays and keep the entrance fee. It’s hard work but they stick at it and it’s not long before the Dead Dad’s Club is up and running.

I developed a soft spot for Rich’s Grandad Bob, who has a keen sense of humour and is a great role model for a young boy who has lost his father. I loved how he made Rich laugh with his assessment of Aunt Carole – she has a beard and looks like a pirate. He’s also there for the worse times too, after Rich’s dad died he has enough sense to simply sit with him as the loss hits him, no platitudes or promises, just sitting with him in his grief. Alongside Rich’s 1980s narrative is the journal of another boy who went to the Dead Dad’s Club after the upheaval of WW2. This narrative is evocative of a totally different era as Reginald is evacuated to a small village near Sheffield that’s something of a culture shock after growing up in London. Evacuees didn’t always have the best time and Reginald is coping with the boredom of the village – his observations on what passes as news worthy are so funny. He’s also navigating that rite of passage from primary to secondary school and the author really does conjure up those fears about the bigger school, getting lost and being without your usual friends. I wasn’t sure where his story fit with our four main characters and this is kept under wraps until exactly the right moment. This book has been a wonderful mood lifter just when I needed one, like a warm hug in book form. One line made me think about the friends who knew me in my small village at a similar age, one of whom I’ve tried to see regularly more recently. We try to get together at least once a month for cake and a catch up and I remember being taken aback at first by exactly how well she knew me. But of course she does. As Matt Coyne writes ‘real friendships are cast in the everyday’ and even though my friend and I often just walked her dog, cleaned out the rabbits and watched telly we grew up together and that counts for a lot. I heartily recommend this hilarious but heartfelt story that’s a ray of sunshine in book form. 

This book has to be my book of the year so far. I’ve been going on about it since May because it really is something special. I was quite simply blown away by this complex and beautiful story of science, loss and second chances. Our heroine Laurel is a scientist, studying fungus and how it grows but for some reason that isn’t clear at first, she’s on a research station in the Antarctic, away from her former husband Eli and without any fungus in sight. When she develops a fascination in the Arc that appears she thinks about its significance. When she becomes aware there is a matching basin underneath the water, her imagination is fired. Could this possibly be a portal? A gateway to a different world? She knows Eli won’t be far behind because she remembers his theory of the ‘duoverse’, the idea that at the moment of the big bang time and space was formed in two directions: our universe, the planets and the development of the world we know and in the other direction it’s complete opposite. I am not a scientist, in fact I barely have GCSE Biology, so I wasn’t aware of any background to this idea so could drift with it and enjoy two incredible minds exploring ideas. Our characters are fascinating, Eli and Laurel are a couple who were made for each other but their relationship is real and they face tough times, particularly when devastating events crash into their lives but I never doubted their love for each other. It’s fascinating to watch their characters face the concept of the duoverse, not just whether it is a portal, but if it is what will their relationship look like there and will going backwards fix whatever tore them apart? I felt both were analytical and might even appear cold at times, but in the moments of heightened emotion we really see who these characters are and the deep wells of love they hold.

I was on tenterhooks wondering about the duoverse under the ice and if Lauren is right whether they’ll ever be able to return? I found myself wondering how this world would look as time scrolled backwards. I was genuinely scared for them but also full of admiration for their bravery. The mirroring is so cleverly done, showing how life always comes full circle and we’re often helpless at the end and the beginning, if we’re lucky enough to lead a full life. As someone who worked in nursing homes in my twenties this really made me think of the role of nostalgia and how often elderly people hanker after experiences from their childhood. Laurel wants her mother’s blueberry pancakes, to watch a film she’s seen a million times and disappear into a favourite book because there’s comfort in it. It might seem like science has sent them on this potential journey, but it isn’t. The totally unscientific emotion of love is what pushes them on, but also guilt, hope and desperation. Loss is a huge theme in the novel, something that always hits me in the heart, and I was deeply moved by how the author dealt with loss and how the scientific concept of a duoverse changes this experience. This novel was moving, profound, invigorating, deeply intelligent and so full of life. I kept thinking about the symbols of the cover, the circle and the tree, the same under the ground as they are over it. As Laurel observes: 

“A line implies before and after; a circle says And then, and then…” 

Happy Reading ❤️📚

Posted in Squad Pod

Loch Bound by Rebecca Templeton 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meet the Author

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

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

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Mermaid’s Cry by Kate Rhodes 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve been catching up on Kate Rhodes’s series of Ben Kitto novels and I’ve jumped a couple to read this for the blog tour, now I have to go back and read frantically to work out how he and Noah have ended up in Penzance. However that didn’t ruin the novel for me because it’s jam packed full of atmospheric settings, Cornish folklore and a cast of characters that left me suspecting absolutely everyone! Ben is living in Penzance, taking a break from his home island of Bryhir in the Scilly Isles after the events of the previous novel. He’s taking a break from police work and instead has found a job at a joiner and cabinetmakers, using the skills he learned building boats with his Uncle. It’s settled and therapeutic work as Ben slowly creates beautiful pieces of furniture and starts to deal with his grief and loss. Noah is a little confused to be away from everything he knows, but he’s enrolled at a kindergarten near Ben’s work so life has some routine and peace. He is starting to be brought into the community too, with an arts festival on the horizon he’s bound to be pulled into the planning, even just as a steward he’s happy to do his bit. Then life takes a sinister turn as he’s on the beach and sees a young mother with a baby in a pram. One moment of distraction and a black figure jumps out of the shadows and racing towards the pram it grabs the baby and throws it into the sea. Ben and Shadow are running before they’ve even thought and he dives into the sea to rescue the baby. He’s now a local hero, but the disturbing and traumatic event plays on his mind. How could someone do such a thing and will they do it again? 

The author weaves her story around the local myth of the Zennor Mermaid, a figured carved into one of the pews in Zennor church. A beautiful woman called Morveren was said to attend the local church from time to time and listen to the choir. She had a wonderful singing voice and many suitors were interested in her, but she came to listen to Matthew Trewella who had the best singing voice. One day after church he decided to follow her and was never seen again. Years later a captain dropped anchor near the beach and was surprised to hear melodious singing. When he looked out he saw a mermaid sitting on the rocks nearby and she asked if he would raise his anchor as it was blocking the entrance to her house, where she lived with her husband Matthew. There are many mermaid figures in Cornwall and the upcoming festival will be based around music and singing in Penzance and then a sky-watching from the remote location of Zennor’s beach. However, the myth takes a more sinister turn when mermaid emblems and notes are sent to people with small children, warning that the mermaid is watching for those who don’t deserve them. The police are immediately involved and new DCI Carnforth approaches Ben for his take on the original crime, could this person strike again? In sinister short sections we are taken into the mind of this person who themself as a mercy killer, where parents are neglectful or harming their children, the attacker will offer them to the Zennor mermaid who waits under the sea to claim them. Ben isn’t keen on becoming involved but Carnforth is keen to have his input and suggests he works more like a consultant than actually making a return to the force. For those lucky readers who know Ben and his dog Shadow, it’s impossible to imagine him sitting back and not taking part. Both of them seem to have an innate instinct when something is wrong and when Ben finds a mermaid talisman in his own garden he knows that he must find this person before anyone else faces the devastation of losing their child. 

 It was strange to get used to Ben in a new environment because he’s always seemed so at home in the wildness of Bryhir. Penzance is a huge difference being on the mainland and being a town, although Shadow seems to get used to the geography of his new home very quickly. I enjoyed the way the author presents Cornwall, giving it a split atmosphere between the town itself and the wilder places beyond, echoed in the two sites of the festival. She also gives us a realistic view of Penzance beyond the tourist trail, as both picturesque and a working fishing port. There are hints at the port’s arty history too with the Tate being a few miles away in St Ives and the attached village of Newlyn associated with Barbara Hepworth and many other artists. There’s a mix of tourism or seasonal visitors, then the long term residents trying to survive, especially during the quieter months when seasonal work isn’t as available and every empty property is listed on Air BnB rather than let to locals who need a home. Young people are priced out of the market and have no hope of owning a home of their own where they were born. Social housing is just as poor and overcrowded as it is anywhere else and perhaps has more demand, in fact the mother of the first victim is living on an estate that miles away from our usual depictions of Cornwall and a big contrast to Ben’s usual working area. The town’s foodbank is busy showing that residents are struggling with the cost of living, but on the other hand Ben’s chosen nursery for Noah has the rather middle-class sign of being run on Steiner principles. There are definitely haves and have nots here and Ben is definitely pulled into the lives of people who’ve had very difficult upbringings in circumstances of poverty, neglect and abuse. However, recovery and rebuilding are also big themes here with Ben playing a huge part in helping those in difficult circumstances while struggling to handle his own grief. 

It’s sad to meet Ben at such a crossroads in his life and I was pleased to see how our regular characters rallied around him, very carefully while letting him think they’re close by for other reasons. He thinks his Uncle is visiting Penzance because he has a secret woman and when his best friend Zoe appears he thinks she’s just there to headline the festival. Yet they are around at a crucial time for Ben and Noah and possibly know our hero more than he realises. I was hoping he’d start to see the benefit of grieving alongside his friends and fellow islanders, rather than removing himself from the situation. His relationship with Zoe is as close as always and her support means the world. She’s also bringing music back into his and Noah’s lives, something that his nursery teacher seems very keen for Noah to pursue. She approaches Ben to tell him that Noah is very talented for his age, a skill that is probably from his mother Nina. She’s very intense and insists that not to nurture Noah’s skill would be tantamount to neglect. The author drops little clues like this one throughout the book until I had about six suspects in mind! The tension as the festival approaches is nail-biting as Ben works with the police to make plans for security so that parents can attend with their children safely. Ben is a natural investigator with an innate skill for trouble that’s almost prophetic. He knows when there’s a pattern in a criminal’s behaviour, his brain detects a clue but can’t quite get there yet. There are some uniformed officers in the local station who begrudge Ben working with them and are resistant to the changes their new female chief wants to make. I started to wonder whether our attacker could be closer than they realise, especially when the DCI also has a warning from the mermaid about leaving her child with a nanny. Crimes against children are so emotive and that’s very clear here as the inner voice of the attacker becomes even more disturbing with a strange circular logic that hard to understand – ‘I see unworthy mothers and fathers everywhere I look, they don’t deserve any more chances […] they think the world is safe and that chaos doesn’t exist. None of them understand the price their children could pay, laughing distracted or staring at their phones. Negligence is a sickness”. 

By the time the festival arrives everyone has done all they can to keep families safe, with a security perimeter at the park that can’t be broken, of course that assumes the attacker isn’t one of the stewards. I was still suspecting the nursery nurse, the festival organiser, a police officer, a young man who is abused by his older brother and even the DCI’s nanny. The author has created short, urgent chapters here. They ramp up the tension as we flip between Ben’s inner world and the attacker’s, following them and their newest victim to the dark, wildness of the festival’s other site at Zennor. We can sense the mystical feeling of Cornwall and how it’s become warped in this person’s mind. It’s pitch black and rough terrain, plus with miles and miles of coastline can they be sure to find the right place in time. I defy anyone to put the book down at this point and I devoured it in one sitting. Ben still knows he’s missing a part of the puzzle and we have to trust that his intuition will click in before it’s too late. This is a great thriller and taking Ben out of his natural habitat does bring a different feel to the series, though I hope he does eventually return to island because he belongs there. We can see in the aftermath that he needs his found family and just like Zoe he will always return to the island and each other. 

Meet the Author

Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected for Val McDermid’s New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious. CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.

Posted in Netgalley

The Jewel Keepers by Sara Sheridan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Men would kill for this treasure.

The McKenzie women will guard it with their lives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out on 14th May from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

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

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

Posted in Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Books About Mediums and Fortune Tellers

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the slums of 19th-century New York.

A tattooed mystic fights for her life.

Her survival hangs on the turn of a tarot card.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Netgalley

The Secret Thread by Eve Chase 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I think Eve Chase’s books get better every time and I absolutely adored her last one, The Midnight Hour. There are elements of the same nostalgia in this book too as we’re introduced to Mimi Mott, interior designer and fashion icon who is in London preparing for an exhibition and auction of some of her oldest belongings. Jo is a journalist, desperate for a break and responds to an advert for an assistant to help Mimi with her exhibition artefacts. Once Mimi has chosen an object, Jo will note down her memories and then write some copy for the exhibit. She and Jo click immediately and she’s set to work straight away. However, Jo had her reasons for wanting this job and if Mimi finds out what they are and who Jo is she could be in a lot of trouble. She would also be in trouble with her grandmother who has no idea what her new job entails or who it’s with. As she treads this tightrope we’re taken back into the 1960s and Mimi Mott’s past. 

We know what we’re getting with Eve Chase, usually an ancestral home or a family with big secrets and here we get both. The story is told in a dual timeline, the present shows us Mimi and Jo working on the exhibits and a little bit about Jo’s life. The past takes us back to the 1960s when Mimi was plain Miriam Bramley and came from a family of gardeners working at Rushwood for the Caswell family. Over the summer, the Caswells are having a huge party and the younger members of the family, Nancy and Lawrence, are back for the summer. Miriam is the youngest in her family with the twins, Pamela and Alfred being nearer to the Caswell’s age. The old hierarchy of master and servant has been diluted a bit, but Miriam’s father is old school. He doesn’t want his children confusing things by mixing with the Caswells. It’s partly that they should know their place, but also that they can only be disappointed by moving in those upper class circles. However, Mrs Caswell is American and less constrained by class and these are teenagers who have their own ideas about things. Swimming down in the river on a hot evening, Miriam feels a spark with Lawrence and Alfred is absolutely besotted by Nancy who is beautiful and always taking photographs. Things become even more tense when Miriam becomes interested in the work being done to get the house staged for the party and meets Whipple, a London based interiors specialist who needs an assistant. It might as well be Miriam who has a good eye and can use a sewing machine. Her father isn’t keen but Miriam knows this could be her big break into the business. After that summer everything changes for both the Bramley and the Caswell family, but the author keeps us guessing as to what tragedy could still be affecting the family sixty years on? 

I enjoyed the changing class constraints of the 1960s with Mr Bramley’s upstairs/ downstairs approach to his work. The change really is led by Nancy who thinks the class barriers are wrong and ends up inviting the Bramley siblings to the party. I felt for the young Mimi who is so ambitious because there was a time I was the same. I could see women of my mum’s generation stuck after giving up work when they got married. I didn’t want to be dependent on another person and I wanted to explore who I could be. Mimi knows that eventually she will have to leave because she’s not like her sister Pam who seems happy with her fate of keeping her hands in the soil, marrying someone like her dad and producing another generation of hard working Bramleys. Their dad doesn’t want them to mix with the Caswells because no good will come of it. He doesn’t want Mimi to work with Whipple because the Bramleys have always been gardeners. I was rooting for Mimi’s big break and cheered her on when she breaks away from tradition. Would she get her dream career and the man though? As we see the older Mimi we have some of the answers and she’s certainly a huge success, exuding quiet luxury and incredible taste. She is a household name. I felt like she got what she wanted because she dared to reach for it. Jo is similar because she’s willing to work hard for what she wants. However she feels terrible for deceiving Mimi and starts to question how much she’s strayed from the good person she thought she was. What happens when the final piece of copy is written? 

I struggled a little with Mimi’s sister Pamela because of the way she punishes Mimi for her ambitions, whether they’re for a career or for a man who’s out of their reach. Just because working the soil and marrying a man like her father is perfect for Pamela, doesn’t mean it’s right for her sister. She also gets to keep her family because she’s seen as the ‘good sister.’ I felt for her losses deeply, but Mimi loses everyone and has to rebuild in a bedsit on her own at first. There are visits but they’re few and far between and only when her father isn’t around. Jo is enjoying her work and finding Mimi’s version of the past intriguing and enlightening. She hates lying to her and dreads being discovered, not just because of their growing closeness, but because of Mimi’s driver Woody. He takes her home on nights she works late and she feels completely safe with him, as well as having the hint of a spark. As we countdown towards the auction the tension becomes impossible to manage. Her grandmother has brought Jo up, after the death of her parents, and she hates keeping secrets from her too. Although Pamela’s not been behaving like herself either, even making an impromptu trip to London which confuses Jo because she usually hates leaving home. 

Eve Chase knows how to create characters we care about and exactly when to reveal the secrets of the past for the reader to feel the full impact. It’s like dropping a bomb into these character’s lives and we know nothing can be the same again. There’s also the secondary impact in the present because of course Jo’s secrets must come to light too. When Mimi picks an object for the auction, and she and Jo talk about it, it’s easy to see how much it affects Mimi and conjures up memories of the past. She has always known how much power there is in objects from the moment she picks up a piece of crystal from a chandelier at Rushwood and Whipple encourages her to hold it up to the light and take it in: 

“a kaleidoscopic rainbow, every colour of Rushwood – stone, grass, willow, rose – caught in it’s mineral heart.” 

Each of Mimi’s fabric or wallpaper patterns has its genesis there, from the plants tended by her family to the objects at Rushwood and even her trip to the seaside with Lawrence. This is why we keep objects and I understand this so deeply because my house has the chesterfield leather chairs I used to sit in at my friend Nigel’s house, the first antique ginger jar my late husband and I bought to start a collection, a snow globe of New York from my 40th birthday trip and a little stone bird by my bed, part of a matching pair I shared with my friend Kathryn before she died. Mimi gets this human connection with the items we use to decorate our homes. Her auction will show the thread linking each piece to its place in her memory, no less powerful than Pamela’s continuation of the family’s tradition as a gardener. Even though everyone thinks Mimi has forgotten her family, I felt that she never forgot what happened that summer and has immortalised it through her life’s work. 

Out May 28th from Michael Joseph

Meet the Author

Eve Chase is million-copy bestselling novelist writing rich suspenseful novels. New novel, The Secret Thread. Also, The Midnight Hour, The Birdcage, The Glass House/The Daughters of Foxcote Manor (US), The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde/The Wildling Sisters (US) and Black Rabbit Hall.

Say hello @evepollychase on Instagram and Facebook

Posted in Squad Pod

Last One Out by Jane Harper 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Carrolan Ridge is a dying town. Ever since the Lentzer mining company decided to expand into the area everything has changed. Some people fought to keep the community together but as offers went out for homes and land surrounding the area of the new quarries, it was only a matter of time. At first they offered silly money and the people who took it were seen as traitors, then as the money dwindled more people took the hint. Now it’s a ghost town, only a few people left and a constant vibrating hum of mining activity. Ro left a while ago but she’s back for a few days, staying with her estranged husband Griff. He lives in the house they used to own while he works as Lentzer’s fire officer. It’s the annual memorial for their son Sam, who disappeared five years ago at the three houses where people held out as long as possible. The bungalow once belonged to his Uncle Warren, but Ro and Griff have no more idea why Sam was here than they did five years ago. Sam was researching the effect of industry on the town he was born in, interviewing the people who still lived there. He left his hire car half way up the drive and disappeared into thin air. It had been a tough time, Ro’s father was killed by a car and ten days later Griff’s brother Warren committed suicide in the quarry. The family were engulfed in grief and the worry over Sam, who wasn’t found. Ro only left when the medical centre closed. She was the GP for these people, now she’s an infrequent visitor, no longer able to stay in the place where they were a happy family. Griff can’t leave till he finds his son. When daughter Della arrives they’ll follow the same yearly ritual, but as ever Ro and Griff find their feet take them to where their son disappeared. Still looking for clues as to what went wrong. 

The author creates such a heavy atmosphere around this small town, driven home by the constant vibrations and the sound of trucks thundering up and down the road. When Ro visits the three houses at the quarry’s edge, a woman is there maintaining the biggest house unable to watch it become derelict. Ro observes it would have been better to demolish them all. There’s constant dust, in the houses, on their cars and in the air. It feels as if the quarry is pressing down on residents and it’s emotionally draining. There’s the claustrophobia that comes from being oppressed and the empty parts of town feel ghostly with Ro hearing a weird clanging noise when she ventures in. The longer people have stayed the worse their lifestyle has become: there’s nothing for children to do; people have to travel for medical help and essentials; the pub only opens once in a while. The author has created an atmosphere where people no longer trust each other. Those who tried to save the town are resentful of those who left early and made good money. Now their houses are worthless and there’s nothing to look forward to, as soon as they can teenagers leave for better prospects. One shrine stands to the old town and that belongs to Bernie, the father of Griff’s friend Noah. It’s a shack that he built with his son and it is full of keepsakes people have brought from places closed down. Even this is rundown and full of dust. It feels like the last gasp of a town on its knees and the repository for all its sadness. 

Ro is intelligent, resilient and a survivor. She knew she had to leave in order to live, not to forget Sam but to have a life without reminders at every turn. We can see this happen as she catches up with friends and they gather at the pub. While having a drink Ro slips into nostalgia, remembering their wedding day and dancing in this very bar. I could see why she left as the days passed, the frostiness between leavers and stayers is so evident and everyone wants to remember Sam, which is lovely but Ro almost wants to have him to herself. Everyone grieves in their own way and I could feel the tension building at the memorial which has become a public event and Ro doesn’t enjoy that part of it. Her walk with Griff, along the path where it’s believed Sam must have got into trouble, is much more private. Each of them thinking their own private thoughts and respecting each other’s need for silence. She’s a natural investigator, which possibly comes from her medical training. She looks around with suspicion, knowing that someone must know something. She reads his notebook again, looking for clues in the last interviews he did and noting anything of interest. Sam is a very real character in the book, although he isn’t present. The sunflower seeds Ro finds in the house that he carefully saved for her garden, the respectful way he treated everyone he interviewed and his emotional intelligence shine out. Sam, Darcy and Jacob were always a three, but after Sam has been away at university he realises that he’s changed and they’ve become closer to each other. He’s invested in what happened at Carrolan Ridge but he knows it’s not his future. However, I could see from his research that he’s asking dangerous questions. He may be a gentle interviewer but he’s still asking people to face their choices and question the decisions they’ve made. Some of his subjects might have found that very difficult to do. 

I felt like Ro still loved her husband. In fact they have a lot of respect for each other and make quite a formidable team. There is a section about her garden at the house, where she’d grown vegetables in containers and loved pottering at weekends. She can barely go and look at what it’s become and it’s almost become entwined in her mind with the town, something that’s broken and dying; ‘what she wanted didn’t exist anymore, she knew, and the sad, pale husk of it’s memory would only make things worse.” She’s surprised to find it flourishing and full of flowers when she goes to plant her sunflower seeds. It made me quite emotional to think of Griff doing that, almost as if he’s tending the garden since he can’t work on his marriage. Ro needs to have the realisation that just because Griff stayed doesn’t mean he loved Sam more or loved her less, it was just the only choice he could make in his grief. This is a slow burn novel but it needs to be so the author can properly explore the complexities of the town’s relationships, the different perspectives between generations and who, if anyone, wanted to harm Sam. As the pressure built towards the end I was desperate for Sam’s family to find him, and for Ro and Griff to reach an understanding too. Clues start to appear and I couldn’t put the book down till I knew. The story didn’t end how I expected but it was so good to finally have a flashback, to follow Sam on that day and discover what happened. It was a satisfying ending and made absolute sense, even though I hadn’t expected it at all. This is an excellent slow burn thriller in an incredibly atmospheric setting, exactly what I’d expected from this brilliant author. 

Out 23rd April 2026 from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Jane Harper is the author of The Dry, winner of various awards including the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the 2017 Indie Award Book of the Year, the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year Award and the CWA Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 2017. Rights have been sold in 27 territories worldwide, and film rights optioned to Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne.

Posted in Netgalley

The Family Friend by Claire Douglas 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is a cleverly plotted thriller by the author, designed to grab your attention and keep the questions coming. Imogen has lived with her boyfriend Josh since they were teenagers. She doesn’t have a big family because of a terrible incident in her past, her father was convicted of killing her mother after a Halloween party. With her father in prison, Imogen is lucky to have older sister Alison who put her life on hold to come back and look after Imogen until she went to university. We meet Imogen at a crossroads after a difficult time at work, she’s on indefinite leave from her job as an investigative journalist after a story led her into danger. She’s shocked to receive a phone call from a solicitor who asks her to come into their offices the next day. It would seem that her mother’s old friend Dorothea has died. Imogen remembers Dorothea very fondly after she took them in when her mum left her dad after years of abuse. Dorothea was a rather unconventional woman, an artist who worked with women who’ve suffered domestic violence using art therapy. Imogen has very fond memories of Dorothea’s large Victorian villa, complete with its own wood and studio. Imogen felt safe there, but it is still a shock to learn that this beautiful villa now belongs to her. As Imogen tries to come to terms with this legacy, questions start to form about Dorothea’s intentions. Was her death an accident? Who is the secretive author writing a book about her? What is contained in the underground bunker found in the wood? Imogen thinks all of this has something to do with her past and her investigative brain starts working. 

This author knows exactly how to grab a reader and keep you asking questions. She drip feeds the answers by taking us into Dorothea’s past and the reasons she worked with women affected by domestic violence. We go into her own marriage, her meeting with fellow survivors Annette and Rosemary and founding the charity that helped Imogen and her mum. I kept reading, waiting for the flashbacks to that night – the terrible night Imogen and Alison’s mum died. Although with her dad asking to see her from prison, maybe she will have to weigh up different versions of the truth. The author constantly drops little clues and hints such as the items hanging off one of Dorothy’s final sculptures hidden in the bunker. Imogen also finds a piece of expensive cloth torn and caught on a small opening created in the perimeter fence. Is someone watching Imogen or was Dorothea the target? There are also emotional clues in the present with a little red flag popping up around Josh, Imogen’s boyfriend. They’ve been together forever, so it seemed strange that she needed time away from him to process and explore her new home. He also seemed to assume some things, like wanting to take over Dorothea’s office without realising that Imogen is grieving and it’s a space very personal to Dorothea. I didn’t like the sulking and withdrawing when he didn’t get what he wanted. I wondered if the inheritance had made him feel insecure, after all it does belong to Imogen and not him. 

The character I enjoyed most was Dorothea who casts a long shadow over the book, despite being dead. I felt like she becomes Imogen’s saviour again, in many different ways. She has been such a creative woman, something I always admire, but also formidable. Learning some of her history makes us realise why she’s so self-reliant. As for Imogen, she didn’t grab me in the same way and I had a really hard time imagining her as an investigative journalist. I had to wonder whether she was a very different character at work and if so, why does she change at home. If we factor in the trauma of observing domestic violence in the home, it could be that the dynamic has conditioned her to avoid conflict and appear subservient. I felt the longer she was in Dorothea’s house the stronger she became and I hoped she was up to making some very hard choices. Her relationship with her sister Alison is interesting, because she had left home before the home environment worsened. When their father was arrested for their mother’s death, Dorothea offered to have Imogen but Alison wanted to keep her close. Was this a sister’s guilt, a need to keep them together, or was there something in Dorothea that Alison didn’t trust? As a result Alison does have a mum’s vibe with Imogen and it’s interesting to see that relationship develop over the course of the book. It’s very hard for Imogen to accept that Alison has visited their father, who still protests his innocence. This could definitely put a wedge between them. What I missed most was the perspective of Imogen’s mum and I would have loved a flashback into how she felt. 

I loved the feel of the house and it reminded me so much of a family friend’s house that we visited a lot as children. They had a horse and lots of other animals, so the house wasn’t spotless but they had art, books and so many beautiful things that I think it influenced my love of interiors and weird objects. It also gave me a yearning to learn and understand art and literature. This is what the summer at Dorothea’s does for Immy, it opens her up to ideas and ambitions she might not have had otherwise. I loved how the sisters come together to try and solve the puzzle of Dorothea’s art and how that closeness allows Imogen to confide in her sister about her concerns; how do we tell the difference between caring too much and control? There’s something about them becoming more open with each other that gives Imogen more strength and purpose. I did not expect to go where the author takes us at the end and I think  it was a brilliant idea. Anyone in our lives can be controlling and we must trust our good when it tells us something isn’t right. This was a great thriller, full of unusual twists and clues, plus some red herrings. I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the past with Imogen’s story and particularly the strengthening of the sister’s relationship. 

Out now from Penguin.

Meet the Author

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number one bestselling author of eight stand alone novels: The Sisters (2015), Local Girl Missing (2016), Last Seen Alive (2017), Do Not Disturb (2018), Then She Vanishes (2019) and Just Like The Other Girls (2020). Her seventh, The Couple At No 9 (2021) was an Amazon number one bestseller, a number three Sunday Times bestseller and most recently hit number one on Germany’s Der Spiegel paperback bestsellers chart. The Girls Who Disappeared was a Richard and Judy book club pick for Autumn 2022 and was an instant number one Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been published worldwide.

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up, Uncategorized

Best Reads March 2026

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let the Witch Trial begin . . .

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

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

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

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

YOUR TRUTH IS A LIE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a few of next months reads:

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Keeper by Tana French

Posted on by thelotusreaders

On a cold night in a remote Irish village, a girl goes missing.

Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river.

In a place like this, her death isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.

This was a new series to me, but having read some of Tana French’s earlier novels such as In The Woods I knew it would be something I’d enjoy. I love her writing and here it is such a beautiful balancing act. This is a slow burn novel that’s beautifully atmospheric and manages to convey both moments of high humour and menacing evil. The small village of Ardnakelty is a quagmire. It’s described as gloomy, misty and wet most of the time. There’s something about the weather that’s oppressive and any walk outdoors is liable to leave you muddy and wet. It seems like a harmless place, but it’s full of pitfalls and weeds that can drag you under. The emotional quagmire is impossible to avoid if we look at it through Lena’s eyes. It is so remote, but anyone like Cal thinking they’ve come here for quiet and to avoid other people is in for a shock. He already has Trey, a teenage girl from a difficult family who is like an adopted daughter to him. How much more tied to this place might he become? Villages like this have one shop and one pub and everyone frequents them so eventually there’s a passing acquaintance with everyone. This is a place where neighbours are more like family. They’ve known each other forever, and their mothers knew your mother too. This could be seen as a bonus, but the author depicts it as spider’s web that once you’re stuck it’s impossible to escape. The only question is, who is the spider? 

“The cloud is high tonight, letting through a haze of moonlight here and there so that streaks of fields rise ghostly out of the darkness and the air has an icy bite that burrows to the bone.”

The plot reveals itself slowly and once Cal and Trey find the body of local teenager Rachel in the river, the tension starts to build in this small community, until it’s pushed to breaking point. It made me feel angry and utterly powerless in parts. Rachel had been going out with Eugene Moynihan for years and it was apparently Eugene she had been out to meet on that night. Was this a tragic accident or is something more insidious going on? Rachel’s family are devastated and Lena is shocked to find out she was the last person to see her that night. The village gossip is in overdrive with different theories, but the narrative that seems to be emerging is that Rachel might have committed suicide. Cal doesn’t think so, but most people daren’t think anything different. The Moynihans are a big deal in Ardnakelty, living in a huge house with all mod cons and Eugene’s dad Tommy has a finger in every lucrative pie. Cal is told no one is going up against the Moynihans, because Tommy has all the right friends in very high up places. There was part of me that could see this story as an allegory for what’s happening in the world – a money-hungry bully, who is always looking for the next chance and has such a hold over people he could get away with almost anything. 

Underneath this main mystery is the narrative of Cal and Lena’s relationship, in fact very early on we get a conversation about their wedding. Despite being engaged, Cal and Lena are still in two separate houses and have made no wedding plans. This suits them, but Lena’s sister Noreen who runs the shop is forever warning them. If they don’t book something round here they’ll lose the only venue. There’s Cal’s worries about Trey who is hoping to gain an apprenticeship as a joiner, has exams to get through and trouble at home where the landlord seems to want them out of their house. All of these things weave in and out of each other, seemingly unconnected but as with everything here patterns and connection exist under the surface. Tommy and Eugene pay Cal a visit, as an outsider maybe he’s the best person to investigate this? Cal refuses but is left with the feeling that will count against him. If he’s to ask any questions he’d rather do it alone, with no one controlling the narrative. What he doesn’t know is that Lena is already asking questions and because she’s from this place she knows who to ask. It’s clear sides are forming, even in the way people arrange themselves at the wake. Cal is with Trey but also his neighbour Mart, the only locals he feels any allegiance to. While Lena is drawn to a women’s table, containing everyone she went to school with and usually avoids. She doesn’t want to join sides, but with Cal increasingly pulled into Mart’s group she knows there’ll be pressure from the Moynihans. Maybe there’s a positive to being part of Ardnakelty, but she can’t see it as yet. 

I loved the build up of tension in this small village and the wonderful way the author balances that with humour. There’s a scene with Mart and a squirrel that’s comedy gold and made me laugh out loud then read it to my husband. Mostly it’s the juxtaposition of things; a gang of masked men is menacing, but has a more comical touch when some are Wolverine and other varied superheroes. As the situation escalated I felt angry and powerless to stop what was happening. It wasn’t so much the brawls, it was the quiet threats and controlling nature of what was happening, particularly to the women involved. Tommy Moynihan made my skin crawl but so did Noreen’s mother-in-law Mrs Duggan, the perfect example of someone who appears powerless but actually controls the household and watches the to and fro of the village from her armchair. This fight could knit Cal, Lena and Trey into this place’s history. They could commit to being lifelong Ardnakelty people but if they are, they must find out what’s behind Rachel’s death and end Tommy’s dominance over the place. I became so drawn into this world that I was genuinely upset by the loss and how far apart Lena and Cal become. I loved that he didn’t crowd her and gave her the space to be her own person. I also loved the way he parented Trey and responded to her new relationship. This is an intricate and carefully balanced thriller that’s perfectly grounded in its rural Irish setting. Cal learns that the villager’s allegiance to their land runs deep and they are willing to put absolutely everything on the line for it, even their lives;

“Their tie to their land is different, not in its intensity but in its nature: rooted thousands of years deep, through strata of dispossession, famine, bloody rebellion. This land has been reclaimed and that changes things.”

Out 2nd April from Penguin

Tana French is the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.