Tag: Netgalley

Posted in Netgalley

The Paris Express by Emma Donaghue

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I first started reading The Paris Express, I had a strange feeling of deja vu. It wasn’t that I thought I’d read the book before. In fact I was a bit disoriented at first, wading through a lot of characters I didn’t know and who didn’t all fit together was a lot to take in. It was more that I had a sense of when I was. The books that immediately came to mind were Dubliners by James Joyce and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Both books have passages on public transport, but it was the drifting quality of the writing and the ‘democratisation’ of people being pushed together in a small space. They are forced to exist together for the time of that journey and even though this Paris train has First, Second and even Third Class, there is such a mix of generations, classes and genders that there’s potential for desire, tension, friction and misunderstandings. However different they may seem, the fate of one of them, is the fate of all. 

What Woolf achieved beautifully in Mrs Dalloway, is that experience of being in the same place and looking at the same thing, but seeing it completely differently. The much loved Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, works on the basis that two people can witness exactly the same event but view it differently. They experience the event through a filter of their own past, their general well-being and mood that day, even whether they’re in a rush or feeling hungry. Woolf shows us that a car backfiring in the street is just a car backfiring to some, they hear it, recognise it and file it away to be forgotten. Whereas, Mrs Dalloway who is slightly anxious and focused on getting things done for her dinner that evening, actually flinches against the noise and immediately her brain starts questioning what it might have been? She will remember it and possibly even comment later that she jumped out of her skin. Septimus Smith hears a bang and is immediately back in the trenches, surrounded by death and destruction. It might even send him over the edge. I felt like Emma Donoghue really achieved that feel here. We can hear the conversation in each carriage and even go into the minds of some of the train’s passengers, but each one is reacting differently to everything that’s going on. Gradually I was compelled to keep reading because the tension was rising with every new passenger and because the reader is omniscient. Donoghue gives her reader the full story and we know the potential fate of every one of them.

Set in 1895 on a train journey to Montparnasse, Donoghue places us within the fin de siecle, with every little detail. It isn’t just her description of the train, it’s the character’s clothing and their attitudes. One passenger muses on the very idea of the fin de siecle, debating whether the closing of a century does cause a decadence of behaviour and fear of the coming century. There’s certainly evidence of a shift in attitudes to the Victorian ideals that have held firm throughout the 19th Century. In one journey we can see women being more outspoken, having a definite sense of purpose, and a need to determine their own destiny. Women are travelling alone or for work, in the case of Alice she is travelling with her boss as the secretary for his photographic business, but she is enterprising. She takes the opportunity to talk to him about moving pictures, looking for permission to make a short film. She has researched the subject and thinks it could be a new market for the firm. Marcelle is researching in the field of science and huge fan of Marie Curie who is so work focused that she went to get married in an everyday blue dress and spent their gifted money on two bicycles so they could ride to the lab every day. Marcelle knows it isn’t just her gender that may hold her back, it’s her race: ‘a pair of twits in her anatomy class once asked her to settle a bet as to whether she was a quadroon or an octoroon.’

Blonska has a variety of skills, but she’s also incredibly perceptive and quickly reads the other passengers in her carriage. I was absolutely fascinated with Mado. She stands out more than she realises, with her androgynous clothing and short hair, not to mention the lunch bucket she’s clutching as if her life depends on it. She’s a feminist, an anarchist and like Blonska seems to have an interest in reading other people. Her own internal struggle is so vivid that I could feel the tension in her body as I read. She seems contemptuous of many of her fellow passengers, particularly the men, knowing that the Victorian feminine ideal is simply a role women are forced to play. To step outside of the norm is brave and a deliberate outward show of her inner strength and determination to change women’s place in the world. 

‘That’s the price of wearing a tailored jacket with short, oiled-down hair. Even back in Paris, where quite a few young women go about à l’androgyne, sneers and jeers have come Mado’s way ever since she scraped together the cash to buy this outfit at a flea market last year. Her hair she cuts herself with the razor that was one of the few possessions her father had when he died. She’ll take sneers and jeers over lustful leers any day. Bad enough to have been born female, but she refuses to dress the part.’

Throughout the novel there were complex relationships and interesting vignettes, sometimes no more than a line that made me rethink the people I’d been journeying with. There’s a grandad who hops off the train at the last stop to have a furtive and erotic moment with a stranger. As we spend time with the train crew, I learned a lot about their working conditions – having to relieve themselves by hanging over the side of the engine. They struggle amongst the chaos to read tickets and make sure people are in the right carriage, some actually choosing to downgrade their journey for some peace and anonymity. I was faced with my own assumptions near the journey’s end as I learned something about two of them that turned their relation to each other upside down. Of course they’re not the only ones who are pretending to be something they’re not. The author takes us far beyond the beautiful period costumes and shows the reality of train travel – ladies having to relieve themselves in a handy receptacle while the men look away, the inconvenience of a heavy period on a long journey, the strange contents of some traveller’s picnic bags as duck legs and creamed leeks made an appearance! The birth scene brings home the indignities of bringing life into the world, especially in a small train carriage. It is Blonska and Mado who have to help the poor woman, who is desperately trying to convince her baby that now is not the time. Mado has experience with midwifery too: 

“Nothing ever came of all that labour—no more little Pelletiers, nothing but stains on the floorboards. Ever weeping,Madame Pelletier blamed the devil. But Papa taught Mado that her mother’s losses and his own paralysis— such broken health among the hungry and worn out—could be no accident. Employers, politicians, and capitalists were to blame for the sufferings of the working classes.“

This was one of those novels that becomes much more than you expect at the beginning, although I should have known that since Donoghue has never let me down yet. I loved how she ended the novel and the journey because it was such a surprise, along with the afterword. I don’t read the blurb or reviews of a novel I’m about to read and come to it completely fresh, so I didn’t expect it and appreciated it all the more. Donoghue’s ability to see the unexpected, the downtrodden, the extraordinary and the silenced voices, of both a story and it’s place in time, is at it’s peak here. These anonymous and ordinary train carriages are made fascinating and unique by the character’s inside and their intentions. Through them she drives the story along faster and faster, until you simply have to go with it and read through to the end. 

Meet the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller “Room” (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), “Frog Music”, “Slammerkin,” “The Sealed Letter,” “Landing,” “Life Mask,” “Hood,” and “Stirfry.” Her story collections are “Astray”, “The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits,” “Kissing the Witch,” and “Touchy Subjects.” She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

The Paris Express is out this week from Picador

Posted in Netgalley

Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Seer. Sage. Sorceress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meet the Author

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



Posted in Netgalley

The Hidden Dead by Tracy Whitwell 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I couldn’t wait to read this, after reading the third book in this series earlier in the year. So I snagged it on NetGalley and read it immediately full of anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed. I love Tanzy and her adventures, usually she’s confined to the UK but this time she’s a little further afield. When she meets charming Icelandic giant Einar in a bar I did wonder whether vampires were about to debut in the series. His ability to ‘glamour’ Tanz seemed almost supernatural. Soon they’re sharing champagne and a bit of naked dancing too. When he invites her to his holiday cabin in Iceland to get some writing done, she decides to be impetuous and throw caution to the wind. This impulsive decision takes her to an isolated cabin with log burners, cosy decor and of course the odd spectre or two, After their first night together Tanz wakes up alone, without even a note and no plans for Einar’s return. She’s annoyed but not heartbroken. At the least she has a few days holiday in a country cabin for free and time to process her last case. Maybe she could start working on ideas for her own play? However, Iceland has its ghosts just as much as London. Did Tanz really think they would leave her alone? 

In a nightmare, Tanz sees a man staring over the edge of a cliff. Is he going to jump? Before she can act a second person appears, a strange man whose eyes seem bottomless and hold universes. She can hear a woman crying outside her cabin and eventually a vision comes of this woman and her empty relationship with a man who doesn’t appear to love her. She follows him to work and finds him in bed with another woman, she screams and Tanz can hear his roaring anger as she wakes. It’s clear there’s a mystery here and she’s going to have to find the crying woman to work out why she needs her help. She doesn’t know if it’s going to be dangerous, especially without her friend Sheila in tow. Yet there are signs of protection: the rowan tree at the front porch; the feeling in the bedroom as if there’s a protection spell around her; the strange man from her dream who seems to be magical. Tanz knows she must help the woman, who becomes increasingly desperate and starts to bang on all the lodge’s windows to make herself heard. Tanz just doesn’t know how to help. When her distant neighbour pays a call there’s an instant connection and Tanzy puts it down to the fact they’re both a bit witchy. Birta has the most amazing cabin a short hike away with a seventies style interior that’s retro and cozy. With their combined knowledge and skills surely they can find what their distressed ghost is looking for? 

I loved the character of Thor who is Einar’s friend but also a cab driver. He helps Tanz escape the cabin for a while. He has such a wholesome feel about him and is the complete gentleman. He listens to Tanzy’s story and doesn’t seem fazed by her experiences, although the knocking at the cabin is a bit unsettling. Tanzy feels very comfortable and safe around him, as he takes her under his wing. He really does take care of her, cooking for her and showing her some of the sights too. He has been friends with Einar for many years and knows how he operates. He wants Tanzy to feel like her time in Iceland hasn’t been wasted and his care of her really makes her examine why she is drawn towards unavailable men rather than those that show her how much they care. She tends to put nice men in the friend zone before anything has had a chance to develop. There’s part of her that’s addicted to the adrenaline that comes with a ‘bad boy’ and she hasn’t realised before that love doesn’t have to come with a side order of drama. Thor also accepts every bit of Tanz, her charisma and attitude but also the spooky and paranormal side of her life too. He doesn’t ridicule or belittle her psychic abilities, showing real interest and a willingness to help as far as he can. He really does take on her quest as his own, but also knows when to step back – when and where it’s her time to shine. He’s not overwhelmed by her and for someone who might be described as too much, there’s safety and security in that. But can safety and security be sexy? 

I’d guessed some of the mystery brought by the distressed woman but thoroughly enjoyed the journey as Tanzy looked for a way of fulfilling her wishes. This takes help from Thor, new friend Birta and the ‘hildunfolk’. All our usual characters are here, including Sheila and Tanzy’s delightful ‘little mam’ whose always there at the end of the phone. She is often more aware of her daughter’s exploits than you’d expect from all the way over in Newcastle. I thought the author delved beautifully into Tanzy’s character and her romantic choices particularly. She has to examine her choices; to follow an unsuitable and unavailable man all the way to Iceland, but to banish a kind, available and warm man to the couch. Why won’t she let good men love her? It works well with the unfolding of the mystery around the cabin and how the choices we make because of desire are often destructive and life-changing. It seems we can be left with so many regrets that they follow us into the afterlife. I enjoyed some of the final revelations, particularly around the character of Birta. This is another solid addition to the Accidental Medium series and I felt like I’d spent a few hours with an old friend. I have a list of literary characters I’d love to have for dinner and Tanzy is definitely there at the table, possibly next to Mr Tumnus. Although she’d have to promise not to flirt with him.

Out on 13th February Pan MacMillan

Meet the Author

Tracy Whitwell was born, brought up and educated in the north-east of England. She wrote plays and short stories

from an early age, then moved to London where she became a busy actress on stage and screen. After having her son, she wound down the acting to concentrate on writing full time. Many projects followed until she finally found the courage to write the first in her Accidental Medium series, a work of fiction based on a whole heap of crazy truth​. Apart from the series, Tracy has written novels in several other genres and also writes mini self-help books as the Sweary Witch.

Tracy is nothing like her lead character Tanz in The Accidental Medium. (This is a lie.)

Posted in Netgalley

The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

Out now from Thomas and Mercer

Meet the Author

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

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

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Rules for Ghosting by Shelley Jay Shore

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

Published Aug 2024 from Trapeze.

Meet the Author

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

Posted in Netgalley

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out on 11th Feb from Michael Joseph.

Meet the Author

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

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

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Silence Is A Sense by Layla AlAammar

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

Posted in Netgalley

Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell

Posted on by thelotusreaders

 

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.

Posted in Netgalley

Crescendo by Joanna Howat

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

Out now from Flying Dog Press

Meet the Author


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

Posted in Netgalley

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out now from Headline

Meet the Author

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