When I want a thriller that I’ll absolutely devour in one or two sittings, I always reach for Mark Edwards and his latest is very unsettling. Fiona Smith is new on the street and is trying to get to know her neighbours. Ethan and Emma Dove seem like a lovely couple, in fact they’re the ideal family. Their kids Dylan and Rose are targeted by the two tearaways who live across the road who circle the other teenagers on their scrambler bikes, as their German Shepherds circle their terrified cockapoo Lola. Fiona intervenes and when later one of the boys has a terrible accident their parents are convinced someone caused the tyre blowout that resulted in a head injury. It couldn’t have been Fiona could it? The boy’s parents can’t find a trace of Fiona online so no red flags. However, the elderly lady called Iris who lives on the corner, she’s sure she’s seen Fiona before but can’t quite put her finger on where. When Fiona offers to look after Ethan and Emma’s daughter Rosie for the summer she has definitely become a feature in their lives. Their son Dylan is unsure. He definitely doesn’t need a babysitter, but it isn’t just that. Fiona unnerves him. He’s noticed that when no one is looking her expression becomes neutral, like a robot. Rose is enraptured though and they begin to visit Fiona’s favourite places and play chess together when it’s raining. All the time Fiona is monitoring Rose. Has she seen a glimmer of herself in this ordinary seeming teenage girl? As Fiona starts to test out Rose’s limits, Ethan and Emma are oblivious to what’s happening to their daughter.
The action takes place over one summer, with steadily rising tension. I can promise you that you’ll reach a certain point and won’t want to put this down. Ethan and Emma have a fairly ordinary family life with the usual ups and downs. I felt Ethan was much more fleshed out than Emma, he’s recently taken the risk of opening a vinyl record store and taking the move further out of London. They had a recent crisis in their relationship after Emma became close to a work colleague – something Ethan describes as an ‘emotional affair’. Fiona is very amused by this description and sees it as a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between them. I was surprised that they so readily agreed to leaving Rose with their new neighbour, after all their knowledge of her is vague at best. They haven’t even been inside her house. However, I did understand the financial pressures and needing to be two working parents with teenagers pushing to do different things. Fiona is a godsend, a very rare adult that Rose enjoys being with. They definitely seem to have a bond, but is that down to a shared psychology? Rose could just be doing that teenage girl thing of being fascinated with a woman who isn’t her mum. Fiona allows little slivers of rebellion, like watching a horror film that her mum wouldn’t approve of. This builds a web of secrets between them and lets Rose feel like a grown-up.
Psychologically, the story is fascinating. The word ‘grooming’ has to be applied here. Fiona is very aware of the protection her gender affords and a further layer is afforded to mothers. No one suspects a mother and her daughter, it’s the same reason that female murderers become so infamous: women are creators not destroyers. There’s also the nature versus nurture debate, is Fiona simply harnessing a tendency already present in Rose or will her grooming bring out behaviour that would have otherwise stayed dormant. There are some heart-stopping moments as the novel comes towards the final showdown and I was absolutely gripped. I love that Mark Edwards doesn’t follow the usual tropes of thrillers, because I kept thinking that once Rose realises her full potential there would be no going back. Psychopathy has some treatment options available, but current thinking is that it’s an inherited or genetic condition where the areas of the brain controlling behaviour and impulse control are underdeveloped. Treatment is a combination of psychotherapy, behavioural training and an emphasis on the importance of connection to family and the wider community. However, it is a disorder that can only be controlled rather than cured. Once someone has been shown that society’s rules can be broken can they ever truly go back to how they were before? One thing that really stood out to me was that Fiona’s house has no books! Always a bad sign I think and as a piece of advice on dating it was invaluable; if you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t sleep with them. I won’t ruin the book by saying too much, but I highly recommend it to those who enjoy devouring thrillers. In fact if you’ve never read Mark Edwards before go and take a look at his previous books too. You won’t be disappointed.
Out now from Thomas and Mercer
Meet the Author
I write books in which scary things happen to ordinary people, the best known of which are Follow You Home, The Magpies, and Here To Stay. My novels have sold over 5 million copies and topped the bestseller lists numerous times. I pride myself on writing fast-paced page-turners with lots of twists and turns, relatable characters and dark humour. My next novel is The Wasp Trap, which will be published in July in the UK/Australia and September in the US/Canada.
I live in the West Midlands, England, with my wife, our three children, two cats and a golden retriever.
There are three rules about ghosts. Rule #1: They can’t speak. | Rule #2: They can’t move. | Rule #3: They can’t hurt you.
Ezra Friedman grew up in the family funeral home which is complicated for someone who can see ghosts. Worst of all was his grandfather’s ghost and his disapproving looks at every choice Ezra made, from his taste in boys to his HRT-induced second puberty. It’s no wonder that since moving out, he’s stayed as far away from the family business as possible.
However, when his dream job doesn’t work out, his mother invites him to Passover Seder and announces she’s running away with the rabbi’s wife! Now Ezra finds himself back at the funeral home to help out and is soon in the thick of it. He has to deal with his loved ones and his crush on Jonathon, one of their volunteers. Jonathon is their neighbour so Ezra is trying to keep the crush under wraps while also dealing with Jonathon’s relative, a spectre who’s keen on breaking all the rules. Ezra must keep his family together and avoid heartbreak, but is starting to realise there’s more than one way to be haunted.
This book came totally out of left field and I didn’t know what to expect at all, but I fell in love with it. I do connect to books about grief and loss as it’s something I’ve gone through but I also loved it’s emphasis on family, culture and tradition. Yes the book is about grief, but it’s also about love. Ezra is a Jewish trans man so it’s also firmly based in the queer community and I enjoyed that too. The romance is quiet and more of a slow burn than the heat of passion, tempered by Jonathon’s recent loss of his father. It depicts the chaos and disruption of death beautifully, especially in how it affects family members differently and can come between them. Ezra and the funeral staff treat deceased persons with respect; they’re both gentle and caring in their work with them and their grieving families. The author takes us deeply into the customs and rituals surrounding a death in a Jewish family and I find this so interesting because we can all learn from each other’s ceremonies and traditions. I felt that their attention to detail and the respect they had for the people brought to their funeral home was ultimately life affirming. Their deference shows how precious life is and that our relationships with family are the most important thing of all.
I also loved the author’s focus on something that I think is the secret to a happy and contented life – being your authentic self. We can see how Ezra’s connection to his communities – family, religion and the queer community – grounds him and reminds him of who he is. When we’re not true to who we are we start to feel dislocated and uncomfortable. Through Ezra’s story we explore how to find yourself again and hopefully be your authentic self. The book felt so much more than a romance, because it’s really a family story too. With a delicate touch the author also brings a light humour to the story, softening the grief and loss without being disrespectful which is a difficult balance to find. It surprised me that this was a debut novel because she’s managed that balance perfectly. My only criticism is that I was hoping for more ghosts. They were more of a background feature than relevant to the plot and from the blurb and title I expected more. Having said that it’s still a great story and I’d love to read more from this writer.
Published Aug 2024 from Trapeze.
Meet the Author
Shelly Jay Shore (she/they) is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender. Her work on queer Jewish identity has been published by Autostraddle, Hey Alma, and the Bisexual Resource Center.
Lila’s life is built on shifting sands at the moment. Lila is a single mum to Celie and Violet since her husband died revealed his affair with Mayja, a yummy mummy from the school gates. His betrayal was made worse by the fact Lila was promoting her book, on how to have a successful marriage. Her mum died recently and stepdad Bill and has slowly moved himself from their bungalow a few doors away, into Lila’s house along with his piano and healthy eating regime. To add a further unexpected surprise her biological father Gene turns up looking for a bed. Gene is a hellraiser, a drinking and partying actor whose claim to fame is playing the captain of a starship in a 1960’s sci- fi series. He’s still living off that fame and Lila is unsure whether she can trust him. Bill and Gene can’t stand each other. However, she gives him the sofa bed in her office, where she’s trying to produce three chapters of a new book that her agent is chasing. Lila wanted to write something honest, but the publisher is looking for the humorous and sexy exploits of a newly divorced woman. How can she write in one dad’s bedroom, while her other dad is practising his piano and planning garden renovations. Not to mention dreading school pick-up and having to see her husband’s girlfriend wafting around like a butterfly, waiting for her son Hugo. The final nail in the coffin comes when Mayja announces she’s pregnant. The last thing Lila feels like doing is pursuing romance, but to keep her agent and publisher happy and the roof over their heads she is going to have to come up with some sexy exploits. Enter Jensen the gardener and Gabriel the architect, but can Lila carve out any time for them or herself?
Lila’s house is something quite rare in fiction, which sometimes feels full of American fridge freezers and Quooker taps. It has quirks like ancient coloured bathroom suites and a toilet that blocks regularly. Celie is 16 and clearly dealing with something at school that she won’t talk about. Violet has had to cope with a boy in her class now being her step-brother, not to mention no longer being the baby. Pressure builds for them all as Mayja becomes unwell and has to be at hospital until the birth of their baby. They are living of the last of Lila’s money from her first book, but it won’t last forever and submitting one of the most raw and honest pieces of writing she’s ever done only to see it rejected, is very hard to take. I had my hear set on Jensen from the minute he came to do the garden because there’s no barrier or mask with him, what you see is what you get. As he and Lila start to talk about Bill’s plans for the garden, often sharing a brew outdoors and chatting, there’s a clear friendship growing. He’s so easy to talk to and remarkably open. Gabriel is his polar opposite in a lot of ways, there’s an instant attraction for Lila and a lot of messaging back and forth but I could sense that he wanted to be in control of their interactions. I am very wary of men who pick you up and then put you away when they’re done, like a worn and boring plaything. There’s a lot of humour in Lila’s attempts to gather sexploits for her book, but there’s clearly potential for people to get hurt too. I also learned a few terms, most notably ‘bread crumbing’ which I’ve been subjected to a couple of times. Similarly, a previous partner described me as ‘too much’ so I had a t-shirt made with ‘too much’ on it and wore it proudly, sad for myself that I spent time on someone who wasn’t enough. This is something Lila comes to realise, maybe Dan’s affair was a symptom of their relationship going wrong? If only she’d known it was ok to take up space.
‘She thinks sometimes that she always felt she was a little too much for him, too needy, too angry, too sad, too hysterical.’
I really fell in love with this family, as unwieldy as it is somehow it does work. I admired Lila, who tries her best to be on board with the changes in her life especially around her marriage. She knows that the girls will have a sibling but can she accept Dan and Mayja as part of that family? Their relationship does hurt her, but her feelings aren’t going to stop them becoming parents and she wants her girls to have a good relationship with the baby. I thought she was incredibly brave to try and put herself back in the dating pool, something I’ve always avoided. I used to say that if someone comes into my life that’s fine, but I’m not wasting my free time on people I potentially don’t like, especially when there are good books waiting on my TBR! Luckily my husband did just that. He walked (fell) into my front door and I feel like we’ve never stopped talking since. You can see the work Lila has done on herself as she dispenses little bits of wisdom on the way:
The dynamic between Gene and Bill is funny too, it’s immediately antagonistic but their bickering made me smile. Bill is angry thanks to all the things Lila’s mother, Francesca, has told him and for his desertion of his wife and daughter. Bill sees Lila as his daughter and has never had any competition for her affections. There’s obviously a fear that Gene will pick Lila up and then drop her again, even worse there’s now Celie and Violet to consider. Bill has always shown love in the way he cooks healthy meals for the girls, picks them up from school and spends time with them. Gene wants to have fun with them, Violet is especially fond of snuggling up on the couch after school and watching her new Grandad’s old sci-fi series. Celie is more difficult to befriend, but Gene is surprisingly perceptive and works out what’s wrong, giving her good solid advice that works. Far from this being a bed for a couple of nights, Lila can actually see him fitting in with their family and that scares her. Especially when she finds out there are secrets about his relationship with her mother that surprise her and potentially hurt Bill.
I read this books so quickly because I felt I was observing a real family, with all the chaos and the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with it. I loved that in a family with so many people, there was always someone who could be there for somebody else, like Gene is there for Celie. There’s so much acceptance in this novel and it’s a great message for a New Year where we are pushed into thinking we need to detox, eat less, go the gym, run 5k and all that other rubbish. Lila learns to accept the change in her life, but will she move on when she’s ready, rather than for a book deal? She also has to accept that a person can have huge flaws, but still have a place and the ability to be a support for others. Bill has to accept Francesca is not coming back and the Gene who hurt Francesca all those years ago isn’t the Gene in front of him now. Both the girls have to accept that they now share their father, but could build a new relationship with Mayja and their new sibling that enhances their life. There are so many breakthroughs here that I can’t list them all, but I did identify hugely with a scene where Lila finally takes some time for herself and has a massage, encouraged by her friend. In the final throes of my last relationship I visited a Bowen Therapist and had a similar experience.
‘something wells in her, an emotion unlocked by the reality of another human being touching her, listening to Lila’s body, feeling its pain and its tensions and carefully remedying them. Suddenly, she feels a great swell of something overwhelming her. Grief ? Gratitude? She isn’t sure. She becomes aware that she is weeping, the tears running unchecked through the hole where her face is nestled, dropping onto the floor, her shoulders vibrating with an emotion she can no longer hold back.’
This was a beautifully written moment where someone is just there for Lila and the weight of holding everybody up can fall from her shoulders. It’s the first time she has taken for herself and all the emotions she’s kept in check can come out. I love how Jojo Moyes writes women and the mental load we carry for everyone around us. A load more exhausting than childcare, housework, career all rolled into one. Here she lets go and it’s the point at which she starts to rebuild her life. Does she pick the gardener or the sexy architect? I’ll leave that for you to find out.
Out on 11th Feb from Michael Joseph.
Meet the Author
Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. The Giver of Stars is her most recent bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over thirty-eight million copies worldwide.
Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. Jojo lives in Essex with her family.
Even though I’m so late reading this book, in a way I’m glad. For the past two years we have been embroiled in the aftermath of the previous government’s decision to house asylum seekers at the the now closed RAF base close by. While many of the community were worried about the issue, our reasons for concern were very different. When a local meeting descended into a heated exchange, it became clear that despite our concerns for the asylum seekers, we couldn’t voice them because of the sheer weight of people strongly opposing the plan for other reasons. Local concerns became lost in the wider debate on refugees. The campaign was targeted by far right organisations that didn’t really care about reasonable concerns, they just wanted to use the opportunity for their own political gain. Known fascists became interested and the gate to the base became a makeshift camp festooned with flags, stop the boats banners and others claiming asylum seekers were paedophiles. It became really hard to drive past and see all this racism and misinformation on the gates of such an iconic base, ironically known for it’s fighting against a fascist regime taking over Europe. We became part of an organisation set up to support the asylum seekers as they arrived into this hostile environment. When the new government changed course with the policy, we were relieved to know that there no longer fascist organisations camping out up the road. This book gave me more insight into a refugee’s journey.
The writer cleverly chooses a fragmented structure to tell her heroine’s story. Named ‘The Voiceless’ she writes about her experience as a way of processing her story and communicating it to other people as far as she can. Her memory comes in snippets, so her narrative moves back and forth in time and might seem a bit sketchy. Imagine everything you have is taken away from you. Your home is rubble, everything you owned that said something about who you are is gone with it. You have no documents to prove your identity or your education. Everyone you have known is either dead or scattered to the wind. She has escaped Aleppo with nothing. If you think about how your belongings, choices of clothing and your photographs say something about who you are, now imagine it gone. How do you keep a sense of self? Especially when you’re seeing or subjected to atrocities like killing, abuse and rape. Your psyche becomes shattered. Our narrator is trying to record those fragments, to bear witness and also to put the bits of herself back together. It might feel strange, even jarring at first but it’s supposed to be. It’s meant to confront and make you think.
The author shows us how she tries to embark on a future and make connections. She’s starting a journey of self-discovery, rebuilding herself in this new environment. She writes from home and watches her neighbours, keeping her eye on them. It’s called hyper-vigilance and it’s hard for her to drop these habits even though she’s now safe. Her muteness isolates her from others, in fact many people assume she’s deaf as well. She takes small steps outside, using the shop and going to the mosque and starts to meet people. Her observations of her neighbours are quite humorous as she gives them names that reflect their behaviour – the Juicer and No Light Man. Her insight into us is brilliant. She has that outsider’s gaze and because she doesn’t want to reveal too much about herself at first, she can use these observations. She writes about the people she sees, the strange way of life she can observe with so much scrutiny because it’s alien to her.
Slowly she starts to process and share her own story. She once had a somewhat privileged upbringing, she was well-educated too but war has left her with nothing. Then there’s the war, loss and the terror of trying to get to a place of refuge; a refuge that isn’t always the safe place it seems. She slowly makes space for new people in her life. I felt like her writing and sharing was helping her heal, remembering the trauma and processing it fully helps make room for growth. As someone who advocates writing therapy I found this so moving. The author has captured this process so beautifully as the writing becomes less fragmented and less about the past. This is such an important story and I’ll be buying the book for a few friends who I know will want to read it and maybe a few who wouldn’t. The sections of her time in Syria and travelling to the UK is so evocative, I defy people not to be moved by the raw truth of her experience.
This book was so beautifully written and so deeply painful that I was out of breath towards the end. When I put it down I had to sit in silence for a while and just digest it all. It’s the story of a woman trying to leave a relationship that is tying her down and eating her alive. Everything she was before – bright, intelligent and full of life – has been worn away. Enduring her husband’s treatment, as well as having two children in four years, mean Ciara has had enough. She can see his behaviour as a pattern and despite being absolutely terrified she needs to find the strength to go. Ciara has no real support, her family is Irish but live in London and despite her yearning to see her mum sister the law states that she can’t take the children out of Ireland without the written permission of their father. Her only option is the housing office, present as homeless and hopefully get some emergency accommodation. As she meets other women in the same situation, she founds out that emergency and temporary have a very different meaning to the housing department. They offer her a temporary hotel room, but some women on the floor have lived there for a year so it’s going to be a long slog. This small double room with one bed and no view is the first place they’ve felt even remotely safe, even if they do have to go down a separate staircase so they don’t bump into tourists. Will Ciara have the strength to stay away and build a new life for herself?
Money is something else she needs to work on because she knows nothing will come from him, even when she knows she is pregnant for a third time. They can’t live on what the government provides. It’s only going to cover day to day subsistence and she needs to be able to put money aside, to rent somewhere that’s a new home for them all. She needs to find a place where they can put themselves back together. I loved the solidarity between the women living in the hotel. They work together, being there for each other’s kids when they need to interview or view houses. They make each child’s birthday special, as well as decorating the whole corridor for Halloween and Christmas. Some of the hotel staff help too, particularly the porter Diego. Ciara lands a job doing what she did before the girls, teaching English as a foreign language and having to learn Irish on the side. It’s a hard way to live, having to get about on foot and working on her Irish after she’s put the girls to bed. I was saying in my head ‘please don’t go back’ over and over.
Ciara’s husband terrified me. He follows a pattern, having love-bombed Ciara in a whirlwind romance he changes straight after she moves to Ireland and they’re married. His restrictions and rages, plus the birth of both girls have left Ciara stuck at home, friendless and a constant target. I recognised the fear she was feeling on a daily basis, quietly tip-toeing around him, desperate to avoid igniting his unpredictable rage. Trying to keep her girls shielded from the worst. I have to make an admission here so that you can understand the strength of my reaction to this novel. For four years, after I lost my husband, I was in an abusive relationship. I was incredibly vulnerable and although he didn’t touch me physically I was terrified of him. I was subjected to manipulation, rage and withdrawal of affection all because I was terrified of being left alone. I was so scared he would leave if I didn’t keep him happy and then I’d be left alone with my grief. I’d needed a happy ending so badly, I sleepwalked into a nightmare. I allowed myself to be totally disrespected and abused. I know it wasn’t my fault. He is responsible for his own actions, but I still felt so much guilt about when the relationship was failing. So for me this book was really personal and it was so well-written that I felt Ciara’s story bodily. When I finished my chest was tight and my throat was sore. I felt absolutely wrung out.
Ciara wondered what would happen when he was awarded visitation by the courts? She knows he won’t hurt the girls but he might use them against her. What if he doesn’t bring them back? This particular fear heightens after she goes into labour early. How can she hand over a completely defenceless baby? It’s clear to see his misogyny when he reacts to finally having a son and I feared that he might keep him. I felt really uncomfortable about the nestling crows he brings home to Ciara when they’re still together. They’re in their nest, barely a few days old and he wants to hand rear them. They are so bald and vulnerable and I was scared he would hurt them, but he seems to enjoy the control he has over these helpless creatures. After Ciara flees he is left with one crow, now feathered and able to leave the nest he keeps it in the house, shitting and shedding feathers everywhere. He tethers it with a long lead outside, showing it the freedom it could have but keeping it for himself. It feels unbearably cruel. It’s such a clever and chilling metaphor. This is not a comfortable read, especially if you’ve been through an ordeal like Ciara’s. What helps is when an author is brave enough to use their own experience or research to get it right for readers who’ve survived abuse. He author has written this so carefully and made Ciara’s life so real that I felt seen. I find that the more I read about other experiences of coercive control and psychological abuse the stronger I feel. Yes, I was left with tension, but I was also left with triumph. It is possible to leave men like this. It’s possible to live a full and happy life. I read on hoping with all my heart that Ciara would make it through and build a new life for her and her children. Underneath my fear I was storing up hope for her. I hoped she knew how much strength she had. She could leave. After all, I did.
Out on 30th Jan from Simon & Schuster
Meet the Author
Roisín O’Donnell is an award-winning Irish author. She won the prize for Short Story of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards in 2018, and was shortlisted for the same prize in 2022. She is the author of the story collection Wild Quiet, which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award. Her short fiction has featured in The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, the Irish Times and many other places. Other stories have been selected for major anthologies such as The Long Gaze Back, and have featured on RTÉ Radio. Nesting is her first novel. She lives near Dublin with her two children.
I love reading debuts because you’re never sure what you’re going to find and this tale of two adult siblings who lose their parents suddenly has all the family dynamics and trauma that I love to untangle in a novel. Jamie and Caz are used to their parents being top of the social scale in their area, a small village close to a market town in Yorkshire. Their family home is a hall in the centre of the village, where Jamie still lives alongside his parents having not found his career path yet. Caz has left home, but has a chequered history of teen pregnancy and alcoholism. She married husband Steve after he came to work on the hall’s electrics when her first little girl was only a baby and she had been sober for several months. Now they live in a cottage a short drive away from her childhood home and recently she’s had another baby. The catalyst to their problems is the loss of their parents. One Sunday both siblings are there for lunch when Jamie and his father clash over what he sees as his son’s fecklessness when it comes to making a life for himself. Jamie has secured a job with the local estate agents but desperately needs to sell a house this month. The best thing in his life is his recent relationship with local vet Zoe. What Jamie loves is his piano, but he doesn’t think he has the skill of a concert pianist. This Sunday he decides not to take his father’s criticism and storms out in a huff. That night the hall goes up in flames, so fast that no one could escape and the hall is burned to the ground.
For both siblings the village now looks like a set of teeth with one missing. The huge gap left in the centre is soon boarded so no one can see the wreckage, but it doesn’t allay the shock. Caz is immediately emotional, dazed even and takes refuge with Ruth, their housekeeper who lived next to the hall. Jamie seems frozen. The only thing he wants to save is his piano but it is damaged, maybe beyond repair. Insurance will take care of it and will hopefully rebuild the hall, but do they want that? They have no idea about their parent’s wishes, for the meantime Jamie has to buy some clothes and moves in with Zoe. It’s very early in their relationship but Jamie thinks they’ll get along fine. As he moves through life like an automaton, Caz starts to slide downhill. Gin was her usual tipple, but avoiding that she thinks an occasional glass of wine won’t hurt. One glass soon becomes a bottle and as she starts to hide her stash from Steve we can see that this could be a serious relapse. So can Jamie, but he’s having his own problems. The turmoil in his life is too heavy for the early stages of a relationship. Zoe had no relationship with his parents and although she can listen, she still has her own routine of riding and looking after her horse, whereas at the moment Jamie is sleepwalking through work and every time they are intimate, visions of the hall burning down come into his mind and ruin the moment. He’s not sure if he’s dealing with his grief at all. When Zoe decides they need some space from each other, he moves out to Caz and Steve’s house. Now he’s noticing that his sister isn’t coping either and his nieces are suffering. How can the siblings best help each other to cope?
I loved how the author shows grief hitting people in different ways. In some ways Jamie has never had to grow up. Living under his parent’s roof has enabled to try jobs and leave them with minimum consequences, while away hours in the village pub and not think beyond tomorrow. Caz has also depended on her parents, dropping out of university pregnant and with an alcohol problem. She moved home and had her baby there, until Steve actually walked through the door for a contracting job and they fell in love. For both of them, there’s now no safety net and the place filled with all those memories has gone too. Jamie also fears the loss of his piano, which has been lifted from the wreckage and been sent to a specialist repairer by the insurers. Music was the way that Jamie processed his emotions and without it he seems strangely neutral all the time, occasionally tapping out melodies using his fingers on whatever surface he find. Caz is more erratic, grabbing convenience foods instead of her usual home cooked meals and forgetting the girls activities or even to wash their uniforms. When the drinking starts Steve stays away from it, leaving Jamie with a full time job and two small children to feed and get out of the door in the open. He knows teachers have noticed the girls are a bit unkempt, but he doesn’t want to drop his sister in it. He just keeps smiling and nodding that everything’s okay. There’s only one person that won’t have the wool pulled over their eyes and that’s their parent’s housekeeper Ruth. Caz fears not letting the emotions out. Jamie thinks if he gives in and feels his emotions he might fall apart completely.
Through Jamie the author shows how grief can change our outlook on life completely. He becomes sentimental about an old couple looking for a house. He has a beautiful Georgian house on the books and he’s shown it to a rude and superior client with an enormous dog who didn’t seem interested. Then he has an adorable old couple who want to downsize and be closer to amenities, but he needs a studio to work in and it is in town. When he shows it to them he knows it should be theirs and when they offer he is ecstatic and shakes hands. Then the first woman comes back and offers 10k over the asking price, but Jamie says it’s already sold and turns her offer down, much to the fury of his manager. Jamie feels different, where once he might have taken the high offer now he can’t. Does he see his own parents in the old couple? Or is it that loss has given him a conscience? I really identified with this because after being seriously ill I returned to my work as an advertising rep only to struggle with selling newspaper space. It felt so trivial in the scheme of things I simply didn’t have the killer instinct. This was when I was sacked but went on to train as a counsellor and worked with the Mental Health Team in my area. It felt like I’d helped someone every day I went to work and it felt more in tune with my changing values.
I really felt for Jamie and wanted him to get his piano back and be able to express himself more. I was also so happy at his care for his nieces and his loyalty to his sister. Underneath the immaturity Zoe was concerned about, he’s a kind, perceptive and caring man. I was hoping they would find a way back to each other. Similarly I wanted Steve to reconnect with his wife and family and realise that while keeping a roof over their head was important, so was spending time together as a family. The author’s setting is perfect and having lived in villages all my life, I knew they come with beautiful countryside around them, but also residents who want to know all of your business. As my parents get older I do wonder what it might be like when they’re gone and I’m now the oldest member of the family. They’re my anchor, but so is my brother and I know our relationship will probably be stronger. I think the author makes it clear how seismic a shock it is when someone close to us dies. I loved the play on musical terms because the storyline has a tempo and Jamie is our conductor, desperately trying to keep the orchestra together towards the crescendo and beyond. This is a thoughtful and real story that had a lot of heart in it.
Out now from Flying Dog Press
Meet the Author
Joanna Howat trained as a journalist and worked as a news producer for BBC Radio 5 Live. She now lives in her native North Yorkshire with her family and two spaniels, and is a keen classical pianist. Crescendo is her first published novel.
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious…
This addictive thriller was set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and gave off distinct Saltburn vibes with it’s resident family and the outsiders who’ve come to stay. Camden was adopted by the infamous Ruby McTavish, Carolina’s richest woman and childhood victim of a kidnapping plot. Camden has been estranged from his adoptive mother for years, walking away from the family money and living an ordinary life with wife Jules. When he receives a visit from his cousin he can’t ignore his family any longer. Ruby has left Ashby House, the family home, to Camden despite the fact he doesn’t live there or speak to any of the family that do. His first instinct, on being asked to return to his childhood home is to refuse, but Jules persuades him that they should take the trip. Ashby House is famous because Ruby McTavish was kidnapped from the grounds when she was a small child, but then returned. Ruby was famous locally: for the kidnapping, for the wealth she inherits from her father Alexander McTavish who was a lumber magnate and for the amount of times she was married. Can Camden make peace with his eccentric step-family members who rely on Ashby House for a roof over their heads? Or will he sign away his inheritance and turn his back on them forever?
Ashby House is as eccentric and jumbled up as the family that remains and is set in a beautiful spot with the Blue Ridge Mountains providing it’s backdrop.
‘Built in 1904 by lumber magnate Alexander McTavish, the house is as eccentric as the family who owns it. Part Victorian, part Palladian, it features smooth gray stone and peaked roofs, marble patios and leaded windows. It should not work and yet, miraculously—almost mystically—it does. Guests of the home have commented that there’s something about Ashby House that makes you feel as if the rest of the world does not exist. As if you could stay safely tucked behind its walls forever and want for nothing else.’
Jules is charmed by the house, particularly the view from the porch up to the mountains. Up till now she has been satisfied with their life and their cosy little flat. She was used to being anonymous. Now she can’t shop in town without special treatment, everyone seems to know that she’s Camden McTavish’s wife. Even if some family members thought Cam shouldn’t inherit, not being a blood McTavish, the town seemed to accept him. As the remaining family members at Ashby start to manipulate and jostle for position, I wondered whether Jules was growing rather fond of the life that her husband had vowed to leave behind. Though it was becoming clear that being part of this particular family is a bit of a poisoned chalice. It felt all the time that a game was being played out but I had no idea who had devised it. I loved Ruby’s letters, beautifully placed between the main narrative, explaining her motivations and serving up some brutal honesty about her husbands. Strangely, although her behaviour is reprehensible, it’s hard not to like Ruby. She’s audacious, daring and has a dark humour I really enjoy. However, she’s also self-centred and devious. In fact most members of the family could be described this way. Ashby House is a viper’s nest of ego, deception, manipulation and avarice. I worried that Cam and Jules would submit to it’s deathly grip. Could that incredible porch view and the ease of a life with money win them over?
The first chapters of the book are a little slow and I was unsure about where it was going at first. After that we get Ruby’s letters, but also the family history that Cam wants no part of, as well as a build up in the tension between the family members. This starts to grab you and the pace picks up all the way to the end. I started to wonder where revelations might come from next! While everyone was under one roof it started to feel like an old-fashioned detective novel/film with an ensemble cast and a plot straight from a Knives Out or Agatha Christie film. This unusual mansion is something of a labyrinth, with each family member quietly plotting and conspiring in their own corner of the building. The slightly overgrown grounds, mountains and sheer cliffs gave plenty of opportunities for ‘accidents’. The author was brilliant at a quick reveal, then immediately hitting you with another suspicion or question. I loved the long running theme of nature or nurture. Is deception in the McTavish blood or is it simply learned by watching generations of machinations nesting in Ashby House?
Out now from Headline
Meet the Author
Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama, and is currently at work on the third book in the Hex Hall series. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree….
For the last four years I’ve been choosing my favourite books of the according to the year – Top 23 of 2023. I realised that would have to stop, otherwise I’d be doing my top 30 in a few years and that would be ridiculous. So I’ve limited myself to 20 and it’s been so hard. I’ve had to be ruthless. I enjoyed every one of these books, despite their different genres, because of the psychological elements: anxiety about the state of the world; relationship dynamics; becoming radicalised; events from the past marring the future; what makes someone kill; growing up with loss. Also, as you’d perhaps expect considering everything we have to worry about in today’s world, there are allusions to climate change, anti -vaxxers, pandemics, war, misogyny and violence against women, the wellbeing industry and psychological problems. There’s so much to wrap your reading brain around here so I’m going to whet your appetite…
This Squad Pod read from early 2024 kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. It was like a breath of fresh air. Cole is a great husband to wife Melanie, in fact he would definitely say he’s one of the good guys. So when his marriage ends he can’t understand what he’s done wrong. In the aftermath he moves to an isolated coastal area and meets artist Lennie who lives in the cottage on the cliff. Soon they’re tentatively embarking on a relationship, but when two activists go missing during their coastal walk to publicise violence against women it disrupts everything and the police are starting to ask questions. The twists in this book are brilliantly executed and totally unexpected. It’s daringly different and left me so much to think about.
Charity Norman always leaves us with a lot to think about, but this latest novel was particularly thought provoking. Scott and Livia have two children and are always on call to help Scott’s brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. It’s Scott’s inability to help his brother one Saturday morning followed by his sudden death that starts a downward spiral. One careless comment about his brother’s care sets Scott on a search for answers, branching into medical conspiracy theories and the dark web. So when son Noah falls ill, Scott has an online community ready to feed into his distrust and his grip on reality starts to slide, dragging his family with him. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Livia can’t support or even understand her husband’s perspective. In fact he’s become a danger to his children and she must protect them, whatever it takes. This is a brilliantly drawn study of how social media can lead to obsession and allow sinister, unscrupulous people to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. It’s also a painfully accurate depiction of marriage breakdown and a perfect book club choice.
This was another book where marriage breakdown is depicted in painstaking detail. It reads like a thriller where different perspectives and revelations constantly change our perceptions of a situation. It’s like a whodunnit, except the death we’re mourning is the death of a relationship. Bea and Niklas have been together for thirty years and live a comfortable life in Stockholm with their children. Yet one night, after what feels like a trivial argument Niklas walks out and doesn’t come home. Weeks pass where Niklas takes a break and Bea is constantly pushing for answers, but when he returns to their flat he stuns Bea by asking for a divorce. For Bea this has come completely out of the, but is it as unexpected as she claims? Bea narrates the first half of this novel and halfway through the narrative returns to the beginning and Niklas tells us his version of events, which is very illuminating and may change the readers mind about their marriage. This is a simple device that works to devastating effect. I felt genuinely sad for this couple, because neither of them are bad people. It explores boundaries and the unhealthy reasons people can end up together. It’s also a response to grief, beautifully played out over decades. Utterly brilliant.
This is the fifth instalment of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodysson series and it was an absolute cracker. Tuva is investigating further north from Gavrik to an even more isolated town on the edge of the arctic circle. Essleburg is a town where everyone knows everyone else and there’s only one way in or out. A huge tunnel under a mountain provides access to the town, but closes down at night. Once you’re in, you’re in for the night and so is everyone else. From her hotel room at the sun-bed store Tuva sets out to look for a missing teenage boy, drawn by the fact that he is also deaf. But when bodies are found Tuva must face facts, the boy could be one of the victim and if not, could he be the killer? With it’s usual quirky characters and alien landscape, Tuva’s world is as isolating as it is disorienting. As usual Will Dean knows when to ratchet up the tension and when Tuva is in danger it’s absolutely heart-racing stuff.
As all of you know I’m a massive Skelf fan and this addition to the series was brilliant. Every Skelf novel begins with a funeral and they rarely go off without a hitch. This one is no exception, with a drone buzzing the ceremony and it’s guests. Could it be to do with the deceased or has someone got it in for the Skelf women? Jenny’s case follows on from the last book and the cops they investigated for sexually abusing young girls in the travelling community. Both are inexplicably out on bail and Jenny likes to know where they are at all times. Daughter Hannah’s case concerns Brodie the new recruit to the undertaking business. Brodie finds strange scrabbled marks around his baby son’s grave and Hannah sets up a camera, but when told that Brodie hears voices she wonders if he might have gone to the grave and acted subconsciously. Dorothy’s case comes from her involvement with a community choir that includes some Ukrainian war widows. One of the women, Yanna, has gone missing. Her husband Fedir was killed over a year ago and now she’s left her two small children with her mother-in-law. Could she have returned to Ukraine to fight, or has something happened to her? Each of the Skelf women feel vulnerable this time and I felt like the author was playing on my emotions a little. I could sense we were on the verge of a huge change and it left me on tenterhooks throughout.
I absolutely loved this book. From the very first line – ‘there is someone in the house’ – this book grabs you and never lets go. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her? The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique the narrator’s unique voice. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – the heart-stopping tension of that first night with it’s immediate threat renders everything else unimportant. I should trust what she is experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: one is harsh and angry the other is soft, wheedling – a voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. Her little girl identifies him as ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares. Often sitting in the corner of her bedroom at night whispering to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? Yet I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions. The author plays with the reader beautifully from start to finish.
Surprisingly this was my first Peter May novel and is a sequel to his crime novels set in the Hebrides. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis by family, when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. When it emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior he becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. He must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He must also, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as they started to expand on the island and become a multi-million pound industry. This is Finn’s journey, of family ties, secret relationships and the bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and old loyalties converge.
Frances McGrath is your typical All American teenage girl, living with her family on Coronado Beach, California. She has memories of growing up on that beach, swimming and surfing with her brother Finley. She is from a good family and expectations are that she will have the ‘right’ marriage and become a mother. However, things change when Finley makes a huge decision; he decides to enlist for Vietnam. It’s no surprise that he might go into military service at some point. Frankie’s dad has a wall in his office called the ‘Hero’s Wall’ where every family member’s military service is celebrated with cuttings, photos and medals. All the men, anyway. Yet not many of their friends and family members have sons who’ve voluntarily enlisted for Vietnam. There are ways of avoiding the draft, depending on who you know. Yet Finley enlists of his own accord, possibly believing the American government’s assertions that they must fight communism in Vietnam, lest it become even more widespread. Within weeks there’s a knock at the door; Finley has been killed in action. In a whirlwind of grief Frankie starts looking into her options. She wants to honour her brother and become a hero worthy of her father’s wall. Both the Air Force and Navy need a nurse to complete a long period of training before they’re posted to work in the field. However, if she enlists in the US Army, they’ll post her out to Vietnam after basic nursing training. Much to her parent’s shock Frankie is soon on her way to Vietnam. This is an incredible story about the horrors of war, falling in love and giving voice to the women forgotten in military history.
There have been some incredible historical novels this year, but I really was blown away by this story set just after WW1 and progressing to the mid-twentieth century. Two German sisters, Leni and Annette, live in Berlin and when we first meet them they’re in dire straits, living in a makeshift shelter in an abandoned garden. Thanks to war and the influenza epidemic they’ve lost their family. Leni gets a chance to earn some money at a notorious and rather seedy cabaret club called Babylon Circus. The naive and rather shy Leni becomes a cigarette girl in a second hand and pinned costume that just covers her modesty, but she is at first shocked by what she sees. With shades of the musical Cabaret the author creates a club that is a mirage of clever lighting, fairground mirrors and risqué musical numbers. It’s enchanting by dark and unwelcoming by day, but it doesn’t matter because this is the type of fun that can only be had at night. Everything is overseen by owner Dieter, a man with his own disguise having left half his face on a battlefield. When pianist Paul arrives, he and Leni start to gravitate towards each other. But Paul has a plan to leave Berlin and he would like to take Leni with him. We then move forward to the Cold War and a divided Berlin, where Annette has travelled from America to visit her sister and niece. The tensions and secrets of the Babylon Circus years still hang over the sisters, can they come to terms with the choices they made back then? Can Leni find a second chance of happiness? The author depicts her characters and the time period perfectly, with so much atmosphere. It’s an absolute must read.
Another amazing story set in Berlin is Josie Ferguson’s The Silence In Between. Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child…
Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine. When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and her world – in two. Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother, but perhaps she can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home. The author takes us effortlessly back and forth in time to understand this family and my heart kept breaking for them over and over for. While I struggled to read it at first, I’m so happy that I went back to it because it was breathtaking. It was as if someone had bottled both moments in time and simply poured them onto the page, raw and confronting. This is an absolute must read for historical fiction fans and a book I will definitely go back to in the future.
Thanks for reading part one. Part 2 is coming tomorrow.
One wild night in the middle of December, local GP Enya is driving home from a house call in a dreadful storm and visibility is poor. She comes across a taxi parked in the middle of the road and a boy lying motionless on the wet ground. Oscar, the taxi driver, tells her he has just found the boy like this and he doesn’t know if he’s breathing. As the rain pours down Enya kneels in the road and performs CPR, desperately hoping she can save his life. After she’s questioned by the police and returns home she sits in the car for moment, soaked to the skin and thinks about her mother. Brigid, a rather eccentric and free-spirited woman, died at the age of 47 while swimming in the sea. For a while, as Enya battled to save the teenage boy’s life she felt the water running down her face and wondered if this was how her mother felt? Enya struggles in the aftermath of the incident and can’t seem to put it out of her mind. Is it because the boy was so like her son, of a similar age and wearing the same clothes? The storm propels her into huge life changes as she walks away from her loveless marriage and takes a job in the small town of Abbeydooley. There she lives in a remote spot, but with a rag tree in the garden that brings people from far and wide to tie their ribbons and fabric to it’s branches. Even though her days are filled with patients and she starts to make friends, that night in the rain just won’t leave her. As she looks out of the window at the sacred tree she is faced with the stories of all the people who’ve tied a memento there. Could it be time to face the truth of her own story as well as the memory of her mother?
We meet Enya in the middle of a crisis and the night of the storm is really the breaking point of that crisis. Enya is 46 and the day after her 47th birthday she will be older than her mother ever was. She has always had the sense that her mother was still going before her but from that day it’s only her. Alone. The grief hits her like a tsunami wave. There’s also the matter of her marriage and living situation. Xander made me feel cold. He comes across as clinical and controlling. The house they live in doesn’t feel like a home to Enya. Their home was the new build that she poured all her effort into, it’s where she had Ross and where she learned him to ride a bike in the garden. Now it’s their GP surgery and they’ve lived in Xander’s inherited family home ever since his parent’s death. There is nothing of Enya in the house and every ornament and painting is exactly where it was when Xander was a boy. If she moves the coat rack slightly or repositions an ornament it is soon quietly placed back where it should be. He even controls her relationship with Ross, having chosen his boarding school and at home telling her not to disturb him when all she wants is to spend time with her son. There’s an invisible barrier there and I could feel her sense of powerlessness. Enya has been struggling for some time: feeling overwhelmed at work; making small mistakes with forms and requests; desperately trying to find an escape, somewhere she can breathe. She has also struggled to let the injured boy go and has visited the hospital and made contact with the boy’s mum. When the offer comes to relocate to Abbeydooley she jumps at the chance.
Her introduction to Abbeydooley life isn’t a smooth one. The tree is baffling to her. It has filthy and torn rags all over it and completely obstructs her view from the window, taking all her light. She sees it as an eyesore and asks the maintenance person to come out and remove it. Margaret is a brilliant character and the women don’t get off to the best start. Margaret has assumed the tree is damaged and turns up the next morning with a chainsaw, but when she sees the tree is intact she refuses to touch it. Doesn’t Enya realise this is a rag tree, a sacred tree that’s watered by a spring from the site of the original abbey? People believe it’s a sacred site, that their prayers will be answered if they leave something to represent the person or problem they’re facing. It seems ridiculous to Enya, especially when a tour mini-bus arrives with a group of pensioners excited to see this symbol of pagan traditions. Alongside this observance of pagan religion, Enya also has to contend with the church. A visit from the parish priest makes her realise that traditionally the GP and priest have worked quite closely together, sharing information and forming a team to help parishioners and patients. Enya is reluctant, but is starting to learn that in these remote rural areas being a GP is a very different thing to the app led computerised system she and Xander used. Maybe she will have to adapt to a new way of working and living.
The whole book is a combination of a woman trying to find her way in the world and navigate emotional challenges, with a darker mystery woven in. The backdrop of Abbeydooley is almost like the light relief in the story, with it’s old-fashioned ways and humorous characters like Handyman Willy. I wondered whether it would be a redemption arc, where the town’s quirky ways would win Enya over and change her life. However it’s more complex than that. Abbeydooley becomes a space for Enya to breathe and think, but her demons have definitely followed her. We’re not sure whether she’s a narrator we can rely on. It’s not Xander’s opinion or the little slips at work that concerned me, it’s more about her rising paranoia and the small reveals that prove she isn’t telling us everything. When an agitated man turns up at the surgery to confront Enya we have no idea who he is or what bearing he might have the story. She sees another man through her window late at night, are they the same man or is someone making a late night visit to the tree? All this time Xander keeps her from her son so she’s reduced to leaving voice notes for him in the hope he’ll listen to them alone. Xander claims he’s protecting their son, but from what? I really enjoyed Margaret because she sees Enya at her worst and remains her friend. Margaret knows what it’s like to make a mistake and blow your own life apart. So she’s the best person for Enya to spend time with. What I found sad is that Enya has had support there all along. Although Xander has slowly controlled her, she has allowed her life to restrict her to the point where she felt her only choice was total escape. Yet she has her sister and brother-in-law, they are warm and welcomed her into their home when she first left. She could have made changes, been closer to her son and faced up to everything. Enya seems like a person who runs away: from grief, from her marriage, from the truth. I didn’t always understand her as a character, but her journey was fascinating. With my counsellor head on I wanted her to find a way to break free from all the restrictions she placed on herself. She would certainly make a fascinating client.
Meet the Author
Cecelia Ahern is an Irish novelist who wrote her debut novel PS, I LOVE YOU at the age of 21 years old, which was published in 2004. It became one of the biggest selling novels in recent years and was made into a hit film starring Hilary Swank, as was her second novel LOVE, ROSIE starring Lily Collins. She is published around the world in 40 countries, in over 30 languages and has sold over 25 million copies of her novels. She has published 19 novels, including a Young Adult series FLAWED and PERFECT, and the highly acclaimed collection of short stories ROAR. Her 20th novel INTO THE STORM will be published in October 2024.
She is the co-creator of TV comedy series SAMANTHA WHO? starring Christina Applegate and ROAR, the TV series, is streaming now on Apple TV+ starring Nicole Kidman.
A single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife – so why choose her?
Katie Lumsden’s first novel – The Secrets of Hartwood Hall – was a fantastically addictive Gothic mystery where nothing was as it seemed. This second novel has the feel of Jane Austen; light, witty and full of gossip. In this comedy of manners, where class and family reputation is everything, scandal is just around the corner. Amelia Ashpoint is comfortable with her life as it is. She and her brother Diggory live at home with their wealthy father and younger sister Ada in their newly built mansion in the county of Wickenshire. Summer 1841 and at the start of marriage season Amelia is 23 and her father has decided he wants to secure a husband for her. He has his hopes for Mr Montgomery Hurst, the most eligible bachelor in their social set and the owner of stately home Radcliffe Park. At previous dinners and dances, he has sought Amelia for his dance partner and they chat comfortably together at dinner. Their easy manner has been noted in society. However, at the next society ball there is intrigue and shock. Mr Hurst has been secretly engaged elsewhere, to an unknown widow with three children. Their friends are appalled but Amelia feels nothing but relief. She has no interest in marriage at all. It seems society has big expectations for Amelia, but her heart lies in a very different direction.
There’s so much to like in this Regency tale and Amelia is the centre of the centre of that. She’s an intelligent young woman who really knows her own mind and accepts who she is. She also knows where her heart lies but realises it can never be made public. It’s interesting to watch her slowly realise that she’s no longer a girl but is considered a grown-up and there are expectations on young women to marry. She imagined spending her days at the family home with her father, never having to marry but hasn’t realised what her father already knows. He isn’t going to be here forever. He’s becoming anxious about making sure she is settled, because the truth is all of them will have to marry. The house and estate will go to her brother and whoever he chooses to marry will become the mistress of Ashpoint Hall. Ada is still a girl but there won’t necessarily be room for Amelia. If only everyone could have as simple and happy a marriage as the new Mrs Hurst. When Amelia visits Radcliffe she is heartened by their easy manner with each other and the very natural relationship he seems to have built with his new stepchildren. Everyone around Amelia, including her best friend Clara and even her brother Diggory, appears to understand this unwritten rule – it’s time to find a mate.
The author portrays Wickenshire society beautifully, detailing how much traditional country society has changed. The differences can be seen in the village’s gentleman’s club The Lantern, where one floor is for those deemed gentlemen and downstairs is for tenants and tradespeople. People like the foreman of the Ashpoint Brewery Mr Lonsdale and military men like Major Alderton. The Ashpoints are not aristocracy themselves, in fact Ashpoint Hall is relatively new despite it’s grandeur. They may be new money, but the fact they have so much of it qualifies them as acceptable in polite society. The Earl and Countess of Wickford are the pinnacle of county society, so when they have a ball, they invite everybody, including the Major and Mr Lonsdale, but they can only get away with this behaviour because they’re aristocracy. If anyone else invited such men to a soirée it could reflect badly on the host. However, the author shows very strongly that just because someone is viewed as a gentleman it doesn’t mean they behave as one. Amelia’s brother Diggory is horrified to find that his best friend Alistair, Viscount of Salbridge and heir to the current Earl, has a guilty secret. His behaviour shows he has no regard for those reliant on him for their wages, the roof over their head, or even for a woman’s honour. This discovery leads to such a parting of the ways that Diggory starts to frequent downstairs at The Lantern. The usual downstairs clientele would be considered beneath him normally, but he’s growing up quickly and making his own life choices. Ever since he decided to propose to Lady Rose he’s started a steep learning curve, working every day in the brewery and preparing to take over from his father. He’s also keen on showing Lady Rose’s parents that his intentions are serious, realising that men are not born with integrity and honour. Money is also no guarantee of a man’s good character. Falling in love has set Diggory on the path to be a better man, also abstaining from drinking and the dangerous levels of gambling that have been the norm for him and the Viscount.
Amelia also has to grow up a lot throughout the novel. The subject of a woman’s honour and her marriageability are the strongest theme in the novel. It’s clear that societies like Wickenshire are in flux. Amelia has been insulated by her father’s money, so up until now the reality of a woman’s choices in life haven’t touched her. It is only her money that makes Mr Hurst a possible mate, otherwise he would be completely out of reach. Meanwhile, some titled families are beginning to find themselves financially unstable, meaning they are having to cast their nets wider to find suitable marriage partners. Where once only a title would do, families might need to consider new money and potential grooms may have to support the whole family or maintain a huge mansion. This could be good news for Diggory and Lady Rose, who is horrified to find her parents in dire straits and in a hurry to find her a husband. If Diggory doesn’t secure his bride, anyone reasonably respectable might do! For Amelia it’s her best friend Clara’s potential suitors that shock her the most as she’s always assumed they were of the same mind. However, Clara’s family don’t have the financial stability of the Ashpoints so she doesn’t have the luxury of turning down good offers, even if it isn’t her inclination to marry. Amelia grows up and gains a lot of perspective listening to her friend’s dilemma, realising how lucky she is to have a family who can support her for life and a fledgling writing career to fall back on should her father’s plans come to nothing. When rumours start to spread about Mrs Montgomery Hurst, Amelia realises how even a whiff of scandal can ruin a woman and how polite society shuns those who stray from the accepted conventions. Could there be a way for Amelia to use her position to still the gossiping tongues and sway polite society to accept the family? This is also a timely reminder that her own perpetual single status could be the cause of gossip.
I loved this wonderful homage to Austen. It has everything: characters of all classes; light comedy; smart social events; a dissection of Regency love and the marriage market. The author then brings in themes that we might consider more modern, such as infidelity, domestic abuse and LGBTQ+ relationships too. Just as Sarah Waters did with the Victorian novel, Katie uses the format of a Regency novel to show us that these types of relationships did exist when Austen was writing. It’s a form of writing back; she’s placing people and themes that were not included in literature of the time back into their historical context and exploring how they might fit in that time period. It gives us a richer and more varied sense of how society might have been, touching on subjects that didn’t really start to appear in literature until Queen Victoria was on the throne. It was only a few decades later that the Brontë’s wrote about more complex relationships: Jane Eyre’s love for a married man, Anne Brontë’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall escaping from an abusive and violent marriage or Emily Brontë’s slightly incestuous and abusive relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. These are very different novels though with a darker tone.
Katie has instead taken all the lightness and wit of Austen, making her novel such a pleasure to read, but brining darker and more complex themes under the surface. The opening scene of chaos as the Ashpoint family get ready for a ball while Ada sobs at the unfairness of having to stay at home, is reminiscent of the Bennett sisters in a similar situation. For Austen, the comedy of Mrs Bennett’s nerves, the preposterous Mr Collins and Mr Elton, as well as the romance of the storylines disguised more complex themes of a woman’s place in society and their inability to inherit, not to mention the awful fate of an unhappy marriage. Upon the death of their father, girls were often left at the mercy of distant male relatives and had no say over their own fate. Our heroine Amelia simply wants to achieve the best outcome for herself, knowing she doesn’t want to marry. All she wants is to live in her childhood home, write her books and to enjoy the company of her brother’s family when he inherits. Most of all she wants to have the personal freedom that characters like Lady Rose and her friend Clara sadly can’t have. You’ll keep turning the pages, hoping she can achieve it.
Meet the Author
Katie Lumsden read Jane Eyre at the age of thirteen and never looked back. She spent her teenage years devouring nineteenth century literature, reading every Dickens, Brontë, Gaskell, Austen and Hardy novel she could find. She has a degree in English literature and history from the University of Durham and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize and the Bridport Prize, and have been published in various literary magazines. Katie’s Youtube channel, Books and Things, has more than 25,000 subscribers. She lives in London and works as an editor.
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