Tag: relationships

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

The Bestseller by Jenny Knightsby 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Therapist Helena Salve knows that client confidentiality is the number one unbreakable rule of her job. But the constant stories of coercive control and threat she hears from her client Belle about her dangerous husband have been wearing her down. One night over too many glasses of wine, she tells her best friend Tala everything that Belle has told her. The problem is, Tala is a down-on-her-luck novelist who is looking for an idea for her new thriller.

Months later, Tala is excitedly telling Helena that her publisher is saying this is going to be her biggest book ever. The story is Belle’s story. Not only is Helena’s job on the line, but if Belle’s husband is as dangerous as she says, her life is too…

Why would Tala do this to Helena? She knows what’s at stake.

Your friends are meant to protect you… aren’t they?

This is a great premise for a thriller and having been a therapist I’m always fascinated by books based on the therapeutic relationship. I think there’s a general fascination about what therapist’s personal lives actually look like. Do they have it all sorted? The answer is invariably no and in this novel there’s so much projection happening between Helena and her client Belle. Confidentiality is the bedrock of any therapeutic relationship, but that can get tricky when the therapist knows the client needs either specialist help or practical help. Helena is there to listen and guide Belle towards her own answers, but the constant disclosure of coercive control is uncomfortable to sit in. The urge to do rather than sit back and listen becomes difficult for Helena and it’s this discomfort that leads to her talking about it with best friend Tala. She asks Belle to bring her husband Julius to the sessions as she’s normally a couple’s counsellor, but that wouldn’t work either because he might take the opportunity to abuse his wife verbally and emotionally in the session. It is impossible to counsel a narcissist.This is an issue for supervision, where Helena should disclose that she’s finding Belle’s passivity and indecision on leaving her husband Julius very difficult. The fact that she doesn’t, tells me she wants to show her supervisor Martha that she’s doing this ‘right’. Helena is a perfectionist and perhaps she seeks approval from her supervisor rather than being totally honest. There’s something about Helena that’s very responsible, aware of her ethical framework and unwilling to break out of it. However, sometimes this demeanour doesn’t seem real.

I found Helena an odd central character because we have access to her inner life but I still felt she was almost ‘missing’ in the story. She feels very flat compared to other characters and it was as if she’d fallen permanently into her counselling role, treating everyone with empathy rather than displaying honest human reactions to events. However, as those events start to spiral out of control, that serene outer surface does start to crack. The author uses flashbacks to give us a picture of how all the characters meet while they’re at university, but also to show us incidents that would have me dumping her boyfriend Dylan, but Helena accepts and forgives. One scene is a dinner with Martha her tutor, but Dylan is late. When he does arrive he’s very drunk and relieves himself on the rug! This would have been an unforgivable red flag for me. Helena seems to have the measured outlook a lot of counsellors have, the ability to think on something for a while and not act on her first emotions. There’s no doubt she’s furious and betrayed when she realises best friend Tala has written a book based on her current client Belle. Inside she’s screaming ‘how could you do this to me?’ She’s terrified of her career and reputation being finished by this breach of confidentiality but she doesn’t show it. She waits and mulls it over, never displaying the emotions underneath. This either shows an ability to rationalise obstacles and work out a response that’s fully thought through, or she’s completely out of touch with her own emotions and unable to express them as soon as they arise. It made me think of the famous book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ where the author explains how trauma is not just a psychological event, it’s a physiological one too. The trauma is felt bodily and stays within the nervous system, causing physical reactions if not addressed through holistic therapy such as a combination of EMDR, yoga, meditation and neurofeedback. The body stores the trauma as muscle tension, hypervigilance and a rapid heart rate continuing to experience them long after the trauma has passed. I felt like Helena was storing her emotions bodily, without truly feeling and expressing them, that is until events start to spiral out of control.

Tala is Helena’s opposite in every way. She’s impulsive, creative and a torrent of emotion at all stages of her life. There’s clearly been an event that’s affected her permanently and it’s only through flashbacks that we see what this is. It makes sense of her neediness when it comes to relationships and when she thinks she’s found one after years of being single, she isn’t going to give it up easily. I couldn’t believe the audacity of taking Helena’s private impressions and worries for her client and turning them into a sensational thriller. It seems out of character for Tala who has been a steadfast friend for many years. Maybe she didn’t expect the book to take off the way it does and now it’s being advertised on the Tube and on the side of buses she can’t take it back. Risky behaviour isn’t new to Tala, we see in flashbacks that she experimented at university with drink and drugs. There’s an element of mothering in Helena’s relationship with her friend, replacing a missing element in her life? Helena and Dylan are that stable couple Tala runs to when things go wrong, but what about when things go right? As Helena reacts to the new book I wondered how much she was threatened by Tala’s success? If Tala gets her act together and does really well with the book, she might stop being the person who depends on Helena. No longer the person to be pitied and sighed over. When she brings a new boyfriend into the mix it’s as if all the problems in Tala’s life are being resolved at once and she is well aware of this change in their dynamic. 

I loved the way the author wrote about coercive control and as a survivor of this type of relationship it matters when people get it right. One of the worst elements for me was that other people can’t always see it, it’s subtle and hard to pin down when someone is exerting their will over you. It’s rarely straightforward because it exists within the dynamic of your relationship, so one seemingly innocuous word could bring you sharply back into line and leave you dreading the real ‘fallout’ later when you’re alone. The worst thing about this type of relationship is that you start to police yourself, trained into acting the way that pleases the abuser. They might seem to champion you to others, but in truth are jealous of what you’ve achieved and once the reflected glory has worn off they might try sabotage. After leaving my relationship I felt an enormous amount of relief but then self-doubt would creep in as if I’d internalised the abuser’s voice. It’s disorienting because the person you were in love with isn’t real, but just a mask they wear to hide their true self. All of this can be seen in Belle’s relationship with Julius and I think my own experience helped me understand why Helena wants to help this woman, even though she’s struggling to stay within the boundaries of their therapy. It’s very hard to sit back and not give advice in these situations or offer help beyond the counselling room. It was interesting to see how the professional distance became impossible when Martha ended up in hospital and Helena was without supervision. 

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

Out now from Mountain Leopard Press

Meet the Author

Jenny Knightsby is a hospital doctor based in West London. The Bestseller was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2024 and is Knightsby’s debut novel.

Posted in Personal Purchase

Dissection of A Murder by Jo Murray

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A dead judge. A silent defendant. And a courtroom full of liars.

When Leila Reynolds is handed her first murder case, she’s shocked at how high-profile it is: the murder of a well-respected, well-known judge. This shouldn’t be the kind of case she’s leading; it’s way beyond her expertise. But the defendant, Jack Millman, is clear. He wants her, and only her.

To make things worse, he’s refusing to talk. How is she supposed to prove herself on what appears to be an unwinnable case?

Losing is not an option. She must find the most persuasive argument. Trials aren’t won by convincing judges or fellow barristers – they’re all about convincing a jury.

Suddenly, Leila finds herself fighting not only to keep Jack out of prison, but also to keep her own secrets buried.

It’s true what they say – there are two sides to every story.

Guilty or not guilty?

Wow! This was a ‘devour in one sitting’ thriller in the high stakes setting of a barrister’s chambers and an incendiary case where two of their barristers have been requested; one in prosecution and one in defence. The defendant has requested Leila, an up and coming young barrister who has just heard she’s getting a mention in an exclusive legal publication. The man who’s keen to let Leila know she has him to thank for that mention, is her previous mentor Julian. As a pupil she had to work under Julian to complete her training and he’s now going to be her opponent in court. Even more complicated is the fact that they’re now husband and wife. This is a murder case and the victim was a high court judge, Anton Smythe, who died in a flat above a nightclub after being hit in the head with a doorstop. The accused is Jack, who works as security for the nightclub owner and lives on the premises. Leila is surprised that his solicitor has requested her because she has defended this client before, and lost. When they meet again for instructions, Jack tells her he will be pleading not guilty but offers no defence. She absolutely refuses to put him on the stand and his solicitor agrees. They should argue his case if he will trust them with the truth. Jack sticks to his guns, he will not say a word about his defence until he is on the stand. Could this be paranoia? Although to be a judge like Anton means you have powerful friends, maybe it is sensible to keep his story under wraps for now. 

I’m a big fan of legal dramas like Silk and North Square so the setting in a barrister’s chambers definitely appealed to me. I loved Maxine Peake as Martha, she was Northern, intelligent, quick with a put down and nobody’s fool. Leila comes across as more of a gentle character than that, but definitely intelligent, determined and perhaps driven by a background that has its secrets. I intensely disliked Julian, but he is so well-written. There was a definite power imbalance between them, especially since she’d been his pupil. He must have seen her star quality and I had the thought that maybe he’d married Leila to keep her under him, both literally and figuratively. The layers of charm and ease soon fall away as the case starts. 

“You want someone whose mind is in alignment with yours, but whose appetite for dominance will never exceed your own”. 

When Leila is congratulated on her mention he makes sure to comment that without his influence it wouldn’t have happened. I noticed that his ex-wife seems to want to talk to Leila, something she’s avoiding but might be worthwhile. As lines are drawn in the court room there’s a definite misogyny in how Julian gangs up with the police witnesses against her, but because he can couch it in terms of prosecuting competently even though she’s his wife, it’s hard to narrow down his intentions. Is he just serving the best interests of his client? Or is he trying to rattle his wife and make her feel like she’s dependent on him? As the case continues their once calm married life becomes more fraught and separate. Leila isn’t sure whether it’s just the case and the distance needed to be opponents or whether something more fundamental is wrong. The other thing that struck me as odd is that it’s Leila who goes to spend Friday evenings having fish and chips with her mother-in-law Audrey who is in the early stages of dementia. Julian never goes with her. When she does have one lucid moment Leila asks what she thinks about her son. ‘You can’t trust him she says very quietly. Thats why he doesn’t come to see me. He hates women who can see through him.” Maybe Leila is just starting to see the real man she married. There is also mystery around Leila’s background, definitely a poorer area of the North East than Durham but she seems to have no family. It’s as if she has totally reinvented herself. She calls it a wretched life that’s left it’s mark: 

“It’s the smaller, subtler things I’m now fiercely protective of, like feeling safe when I turn the light off before I go to sleep […] recognising my body is my own and I now get a say in who touches it. The things I had to do to get here you’d be horrified to know.”

It feels as if her relationships have been transactional even when she’s had a choice. Could Julian just be another rung on the ladder? It seems he wasn’t her first mentor and she wonders often whether this past will catch up with her. The twist is very good indeed. I had an inkling, but it is a proper ‘sixth sense’ moment where you’ll want to flick back through the book and see the clues you missed. This is a high drama, high stakes, legal battle and only one of them can win. The tension is unbearable as Jack takes the stand, it almost feels like a done deal but no one is expecting his testimony. The fall out is seismic. This is such a clever thriller with a cast of characters you won’t like but will be fascinated with. It’s very well written by an author who knows this profession and its pitfalls for women, particularly working class ones. It feels like social commentary – with the well educated, upholders of the law and all their status, against the ordinary, working class person who’s usually in the dock. Can the law be the great equaliser it seems or are some people more equal than others? This was a great debut with a fast pace and some brilliant ‘oh my God’ moments. 

Meet the Author

Jo grew up in Teesside during the 90s when working class girls were told they probably shouldn’t try to become barristers. Thankfully, she ignored everyone. After studying Classics at Newcastle University, she went to law school and did just that. Jo was a criminal barrister before leaving the profession to look after her two children. She lives in North Yorkshire.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

WHAT IF TOMORROW WAS ALREADY WRITTEN, BUT YESTERDAY WAS YOURS TO CHANGE?

At an isolated research station in Antarctica, biologist Laurel Salter washes dishes for a living ten hours a day, six days a week. She tells no one why she left her career, or why her marriage ended.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo, her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind.

Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them – to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

And this time, live it differently.

Once read, never forgotten, Under Story is a genre-defying exploration of the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love.

This is my book of the year so far and I can’t stop talking about it. I’d read it on NetGalley in the spring and I was desperate to review but it felt too early. So when I found out my fellow squadettes were reading this in August I had to join in. I was quite simply blown away by this complex and beautiful story of science, loss and second chances. I still think about it all the time. Our heroine Laurel is a scientist, studying fungus and how it grows but for some reason that isn’t clear at first, she’s on a research station in the Antarctic, away from her former husband Eli and without any fungus in sight. When she develops a fascination in the Arc that appears above the pole she thinks about its significance, but when she becomes aware there is a matching basin underneath the water, her imagination becomes fired. Could this possibly be a portal? A gateway to a different world? She knows Eli won’t be far behind her because she remembers his theory of the ‘duoverse’, the idea that at the moment of the big bang time and space was formed in two directions: our universe, the planets and the development of the world we know and in the other direction it’s complete opposite. I am not a scientist, in fact I barely have GCSE Biology, so I wasn’t aware of any background to this idea so could drift with it and enjoy two incredible minds exploring ideas. I was fascinated with Laurel’s experiments with fungus growing in a maze and whether it moved in a specific direction. She was disappointed to find it tried out all routes then doubled back on itself, but then a second batch made straight for the right route as if it had learned from the previous batch’s mistakes. It felt like a demonstration of Jung’s collective consciousness:

“Ideas spread and somehow we’re all plugged into them.”

I often feel this about ideas, like when several books come out on the same subject at once. It reminded me of something I’ve read before – that ideas are hanging in the air and if we don’t grab them someone else will. As Laurel presents her paper at conference she’s asked some particularly tough questions by one delegate who is unimpressed with her work, claiming she’s applying a human lens to interpret her results. Laurel’s retort is to ask why the delegate is assuming that all intelligence is human? Laurel knows that we like to separate ourselves from animals and plants, safely in our own superior category, but oxygen from our atmosphere is running through our veins and the word human comes from the Latin word ‘humus’ meaning soil. Thinking that we are of the earth is the only thing that comforted Laurel when her dad died. She thinks about how bronchi in our lungs branch like trees and how a ‘neural network in the brain is structured like a galaxy’. I loved reading these aspects of the book and really appreciated how cleverly the author plants these ideas in the first part of the book and they grow in the second part. 

Our characters are fascinating, Eli and Laurel are a couple who were made for each other but their relationship is real and they face tough times, particularly devastating events crash into their lives but I never doubted their love for each other. It’s fascinating to watch their characters face the concept of the duoverse, not just whether it is a portal, but if it is what will their relationship look like there and will going backwards fix whatever tore them apart. I felt both were analytical and might even appear cold at times, but in the moments of heightened emotion we really see who these characters are and the deep wells of love they hold. It was two other characters that caught my imagination though: Gloria and Mr Nakamura. I absolutely loved Gloria who is Laurel’s mentor in our universe and her house in San Francisco was so brilliant I wanted to live there: 

‘It was an old Arts and Crafts house on Prospect Avenue, dark wood with purple roses growing in the garden and ivy trailing over the windows. Inside was enchantment; half melted candles, cabinets of oddities, a Maine Coon cat the colour of midnight.’ 

Gloria is intelligent, feisty and an incredible mentor to Laurel and I had a feeling they would meet in any universe. Mr Nakamura is a character from later in the book who is an ‘overtaker’ – a thought I’ll leave with you – who’s incredibly wise and understanding, helping with the difficult parts of life’s journey with dignity. Every character springs to life and has a backstory. 

The book’s settings are incredible. First the frozen wasteland of the Antarctic and its different scientific research bases are fascinating. I had no idea how many were there, but McMurdo is like a mini town and it’s the tiny details that give it authenticity. Many of the scientists go home for the winter months when it’s impossible to go outside and cabin fever can really kick in. Some people have an ‘ice-wife’ or husband who they’re in a relationship with in the summer months, then go home to their real spouses in the winter. Bits of the real world come through, such as the disappointment in a second Trump presidency, but it feels like a different world and the perfect place to avoid reality too. Every world the author presents to us feels absolutely real even though some of it seems impossible. I was on tenterhooks wondering about the duoverse under the ice and if Lauren is right whether they’ll ever be able to return? I found myself wondering how this world would look as time scrolled backwards. I was genuinely scared for them but also full of admiration for their bravery. The mirroring is so cleverly done, showing how life always comes full circle and we’re often helpless at the end and the beginning, if we’re lucky enough to lead a full life. As someone who worked in nursing homes in my twenties this really made me think of the role of nostalgia and how often elderly people hanker after experiences from their childhood. Laurel wants her mother’s blueberry pancakes, to watch a film she’s seen a million times and disappear into a favourite book because there’s comfort in it. It might seem like science has sent them on this potential journey, but it isn’t. The totally unscientific emotion of love is what pushes them on, but also guilt, hope and desperation. Loss is a huge theme in the novel, something that always hits me in the heart, and I was deeply moved by how the author dealt with grief across the novel and how the scientific concept of a duoverse changes this experience. This novel was moving, profound, invigorating, deeply intelligent and so full of life. I kept thinking about the symbols of the cover, the circle and the tree, the same under the ground as they are over it. As Laurel observes: 

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

Out 1st September from Tinder Press

Meet the Author

Chloe Benjamin is the author of THE IMMORTALISTS, a New York Times Bestseller, and THE ANATOMY OF DREAMS. Her third novel, UNDER STORY, will be published in September 2026.

A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, LibraryReads favorite, and #1 Indie Next pick, THE IMMORTALISTS was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and others. THE ANATOMY OF DREAMS received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was long listed for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Originally from San Francisco, CA, Benjamin is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Posted in Wordpress Prompts

Rewriting the Ending

Posted on by thelotusreaders

If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?

If I could rewrite a book’s ending it would be for purely sentimental reasons. The first time I read One Day by David Nicholls I burst into tears. Genuine gulping sobs. Spoiler alert here, this line broke me.

“Then Emma Mayhew dies, and everything that she thought or felt vanishes and is gone forever.”

It’s such a simple line, but beautifully written. The change from past to present tense so we’re right there in the moment of the accident, it’s the finality too. Not just a body but that peculiar magic of thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that make up a person. That make us fall in love with a person. David Nicholls spends three quarters of the book manipulating us into falling in love with Emma and in a moment she’s snuffed out.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this response was down to my personal experience. Probably so. Partly I probably was grieving for my husband Jerzy, he’d only died two years before. Isn’t it strange the way our memories become confused but I would have sworn the book came out before he died. I imagined I’d read it while I was at university in 2001 but since the book was published in 2009 my grief would have been raw.

It’s the futility of all the time they danced around each other, for twenty years until Dexter gets his act together and recognises how much he loves this incredible woman. He certainly takes his time. Only for their time as lovers to be cut short in a second.

For me Emma is at her happiest in Paris. She’s cut her hair. She has a lovely apartment. She writes books for children. Everything she’s hoped and worked for is hers and then Dex turns up, newly divorced and suddenly she’s on his radar. Finally he sees what’s in front of him. So I would leave Emma in Paris, meeting men who see her value and writing her books, exploring the city that’s kickstarted her dreams and done with being Dexter’s consolation prize. She will always care but knows that’s the right decision for her and her happiness. We leave her with her thoughts and feelings intact, buying flowers and meeting a man for a gallery and dinner.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

What do you do when you’ve ruined your life? You go home to your mother, if you’re lucky enough still to have one. Saoirse Maher wouldn’t recommend it. 

Leaving home wasn’t supposed to be temporary. When she moved to London, Saoirse was leaving Ireland behind for good, and with it her messy, broken family. But it turns out that starting again isn’t as easy as she imagined, and when her five-year relationship goes south, Saoirse finds herself out of options. And so here she is, trudging back to her mother Máire’s house up a side road on the outskirts of Irish civilisation. 

Except the world she comes back to is nothing like the one she left behind. Her mother has a new family, and everyone else seems to be moving on. But between the drinking, drugs, and an entirely healthy, not-problematic-at-all-thanks relationship with Charlie, there’s plenty to distract her.

Don’t look too closely, and everything’s fine. Saoirse is just fine. 

This was one of those books where the narrative voice captures you straight away and you know you’ll follow wherever she takes you. Saoirse is in her early twenties, newly returned to a small town in the Irish midlands when her big life in London doesn’t go as planned. Now back under the roof of her mother, her second husband JJ and their three perfect daughters, all Saoirse can see is the difference between the mother her little sisters have and the mother she had at the same age. Back then Máire was young and struggling, with a husband who’d rather drink his wages than bring them home to his wife and child. In fact Saoirse can remember being in her mother’s car, driving from pub to pub to look for him. There was so much drama between her parents she might as well have been invisible. When she contrasts this with Lily, Grace and Emilia’s life she can see the difference but she can’t understand it; are they just more lovable than her? She notices the way her mother Máire dotes on them, puts their hair into identical plaits but stops short of identical clothes, reads to them at night and makes sure they’re cared for and these small expressions of love hit Saoirse like poison darts. Her sisters even get to call her Mammy, something that Máire was very clear about:

“I was christened Máire Lynch. Not Mammy. That is not my name. I won’t speak to you if you don’t use my name.”

Sometimes she wonders if the impression she has of their relationship is distorted but then she remembers Granny Lynch, the person who cared for her most asking her aunt to give her some leeway; ‘leave her be, you’ve met her mother.’ Granny’s is the only place she had stability and felt loved for herself, just for existing. Even now, at the age of 24, Saoirse feels her mum’s bite as she bullies her out of bed in the morning, insists she does an interview for the local hardware store and is insistent that JJ shouldn’t have to keep her. Saoirse just wanted a few days grace to gather her thoughts and adjust, but now she’s everything she didn’t want to be, living back with her mother in a small Irish town and doing a job that has no meaning and pays enough money to get by week to week. Then, with her friend Doireann she spends it on alcohol and drugs to forget the tedium and disappointment of life for a few hours. She isn’t even allowed to express her disappointments because Máire is right there, ready to tell her what it was like to be her age with a baby and an alcoholic husband. The author uses wit and humour, even within the darker themes and here Saoirse talks about the ‘overarching theme of the Annual Irish Suffering Olympics’. If you complained about a broken toe, someone else had lost their foot in a mowing accident, so you should ‘get over yourself’. This was such a familiar moment of Irish family humour that it made me smile. 

It’s easy to forget Máire’s struggles because Saoirse’s voice is so compelling. It’s no wonder her mother enjoys the routine and stability of her relationship with JJ after the turbulence of marriage to Saoirse’s father. When Saoirse hits rock bottom her dad is briefly there for her, but it’s the first time. Although we concentrate on the mother/ daughter relationship, he has been completely absent in her life. He’s one of those Irishmen who are great at stories and for the craic down at the pub, but they don’t see the state he’s in at home and the way he chooses drink over his family again and again. He seems stable enough at the moment, living with his second wife and making bodhrains in his garden workshop, but he will always let her down. I was concerned that Saoirse would end up living her mum’s life, young, pregnant and with a partner who can’t be trusted. I felt so maternal towards Saoirse throughout and I could see that her lack of parental support left her craving love and acceptance. It’s like a huge hole that can never be filled. Unfortunately it also leaves her open to damaging relationships and when she meets Charlie, through Doireann and her on again off again boyfriend Connor, she falls headlong into tumultuous and possessive feelings.

I was holding on to hope that she could get her life back on track, even when it hits rock bottom and she wakes up in hospital. In the end she turns to counselling and one of the first things they talk about is that emptiness Saoirse feels where the love and support of a parent should be. One line of dialogue in the book broke my heart more than anything and it’s when Máire is throwing all her anger and resentment at her daughter. Their fight turns physical when Saoirse reminds her that she forgot she had a fourth child. When she asks her mother what she’ll tell her little sisters Máire says ‘I’ll tell them to be anyone but you.’ It’s so harsh it stopped me short. Of course in order to heal we look for closure and Saoirse has tried drugs, alcohol, relationships and acting out to fill that hole at her centre. The counsellor asks her some searching questions. What if that closure never comes? What if she doesn’t have a relationship with her mother? Somehow she has to learn to feel that uncomfortable absence without trying to fill it with other things. I felt there was hope that she would build self esteem, because even in the throes of first love she finds Doireann’s relationship with Connor uncomfortable. When she tries to clarify whether they are together or not, Doireann says they’re not ‘together, together’ but it’s great because they both get their space and they’re not making claims on each other. Saoirse is confused and asks Doireann who else she’s seeing, but she’s only seeing Connor while he’s seeing other girls. 

“So you do all the things a couple does without the security of knowing you’re not going to get cheated on.”

Of course she could be cheated on whether in an official relationship or not, but the need to point out that only Connor benefits from their arrangement shows that Saoirse does have some expectations and standards. She knows she doesn’t want that kind of relationship. She wants boundaries, exclusivity and respect it’s just that her desperate need for love and acceptance means she settles for less. She also knows that her own capacity for love is immense, saying she would tear herself down to make sure Charlie grew because ‘it was just my way.’ Luckily at this point she moves in with Doireann and her family and sees a totally different way of parenting, a seemingly natural maternity in her mum Karen who struggled to become a parent and sees her daughter as something of a miracle. Saoirse notices that they have saved mementoes of every milestone in their daughter’s life and yet are still able to listen and support her plans to move away from home. When Karen’s had a hard shift at the hospital, Saoirse listens and makes her a cup of tea and Karen tells her she’s a ‘good girleen’ but the compliment is so alien to her she doesn’t know what to do with it. Being mothered makes her realise how complicated it is and opens up the guilt, anger, resentment and thoughts that she could ‘fuck up’ her own daughter. Yet she’s already thinking about how to stop repeating the pattern. 

This is a remarkable debut. Every single character felt completely real and the author has captured the awkward vulnerability of youth and a girl who has never had that parental safety net that allows her to experiment and work out who she is. The language is beautiful too from the viciousness of a resentful parent, to the delirium of drug addled parties and the tedium of the hardware store. She describes a silence between her and her mother as weighing on her like ‘wet wool’ and I could feel its heaviness. It all rings true and struck a chord with me about my own teenage years and not always being understood. Some of the descriptive passages are so layered they create tiny moments of stillness within the turbulence becoming passages to breathe in. I found myself responding to the book bodily, so immersed that when the author described a panic attack I realised I was holding my own breath. I felt sad, angry and deeply maternal towards Saoirse and with my counsellor head on I wanted to help. I wanted her to see that she wasn’t the sum of her parents and all the bad things that had happened, that even in the darkest moments there is a tiny spark of light. Any writer that can make a reader feel so much for her characters and their journey is special and I can’t wait to read what Caragh does next, but for now I know Saoirse will be staying with me for a while. 

Out now from OneWorld Publications

Caragh Maxwell is a writer living in Sligo town. She graduated from the Trinity College MPhil in Creative Writing in 2023, and her essays, poems and stories have been published in The Irish Times, The Cormorant and other publications. Her writing focuses on the self, memory, and womanhood. Sugartown is her debut novel, and was shortlisted for the 2025 A Post Irish Book Awards.

Posted in Netgalley

The Glass Key by Amanda Geard

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“They do say secrets are revealed one funeral at a time.”

I absolutely adored Amanda’s previous novel The Moon Gate, set at the outbreak of WW2 and straddling Australia, Ireland and the UK. This time she starts her story in Ireland, where Maggie has grown up hearing her mother tell her the bedtime story of The Glass Key. It’s a Nordic fairytale passed down by Maggie’s grandmother Anna Swan, who mysteriously left her home one stormy night years ago, never to return. Now Maggie’s grandfather has died and going through his things, Maggie is shocked to discover a faded wartime letter, asking him to take in a baby. In that moment she realises that Anna Swan was a woman of many secrets.

Only by travelling to Norway and discovering the story of four brave young women whose lives were forever changed by the occupation of their tiny islands, can Maggie uncover the shocking truth about her family – and finally unlock the mystery of the glass key…

There are many historical fiction novels looking at women’s lives during WW2, but I hadn’t read any set on Norway’s many islands, so it brought a different perspective and an atmospheric setting to the story. People becoming displaced and lost during WW2 is close to my heart as my late husband was Polish and both of his parents were displaced during the war: Hannah escaped Warsaw as a small child in the sewers and ended up alone at a Scottish school for refugee children. Whereas Alek was taken to Siberia by the Russians, but somehow escaped and ended up living in the Siberian forests before making his way to England through the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. These individual family stories have huge impact through the generations. Hannah’s dad believed his family to be dead and made his way to America where he remarried. Hannah then had a half-sister in Washington who she only discovered decades later. Amanda shows the chaos of war, not just on the battlefield but in ordinary everyday lives and it brings home how impossible it was to escape the war’s grasp. Through Maggie’s family and four extraordinary women in the Norwegian islands we can see how far the war reached, in fact it’s only for one afternoon on an uninhabited island that the women could let go and clear their minds. Around these archipelagoe there are tiny bays and secret places that are impossible to police, especially when up against local knowledge. It’s no surprise that the allies would use it as the perfect spot for secret assignations. Small boats can be missed in fog and poor weather conditions and although Germany annexed Norway, they haven’t reached these remote places yet. But there’s no doubt they’re coming. 

The narrative is a dual timeline split between wartime Norway and modern day Ireland. In Ireland Maggie has had to come home after her grandfather’s death because his home at Hellebore House may have to be sold. Her grandfather Atticus lived there with his Norwegian wife Anna. Anna spent many years in the garden, cultivating Norwegian plants and flowers. She left when Maggie’s mother Freja was young, with no explanation. Maggie’s first instinct, now Atticus is gone, is to try and save the house but as she goes through his things letters from Freja’s mother are hidden away, sketches of Norwegian flowers and a painting of the island of Einevar that she’s never noticed before. The key is a photograph of three young women and a man lying in the grass surrounded by wild flowers. On the back are four names: Liv, Nina, Astrid and Lief and the place, Lyosa. How might these people be connected to her great-grandmother Anna? As Maggie becomes more curious about her family’s past, she also has to face her own past in the shape of first love Jack who has moved back to the area. She doesn’t need to complication as she’s still healing from her divorce and the knowledge that she’s infertile. The Norway narrative is told chronologically as we meet sisters Nina and Liv, their friend Gudrun and a new teacher called Astrid who’s been sent from the mainland to work alongside the formidable school mistress Froken Henrikson. Nina and Liv soon make friends with Astrid after they’re introduced by Gudrun. All the women know the Germans are getting closer and when they find a British man injured in a small boat they assume he is carrying out some secret mission. His appearance sets up a love triangle between him and the fisherman Lief who absolutely adores Liv, but are those feelings reciprocated? Meanwhile, Astrid and Nina are becoming much closer too. When the Germans do arrive, it’s two brothers called Grimm and a man called Bruno Schmitte who is an artist. The tiny population of Einevar can’t predict how the islanders will respond to a German presence. There are those who will resist and place themselves in danger and others who will fall in line, causing a fracture between young people who’ve known each other all their lives. Their last uncomplicated day was spent on Lyosa when, for one afternoon, the friends lie in the sun and don’t think about the war. 

There are brilliantly layered and complex characters here, particularly the women. Astrid is brave, very sure of who she is and her feelings. She’s loyal to those she loves and to her country, becoming very close to the sisters, especially Nina. Liv is young and headstrong, placing herself and others in dangerous situations. Lief has adored her for his whole life and will do anything for her, but will that loyalty place him in harm’s way? Liv shelters and nurses an allied agent who drifts onto Einevar having been attacked by German fighters, until he’s fit for the voyage back, knowing that if found out she and Nina would likely end up in prison. I loved how independent the Norwegian women seemed to be, able to sail, weather the elements and forage for themselves. It’s not an easy life, even before the war starts and they are determined to resist the Germans in any way they can. Not everybody on the island thinks this way though, with some becoming close to the German brothers despite it being an affront to family and friends. I did wonder if I could be so brave as to fend for myself without basic utilities and forced to fish or forage for food. These women are so in touch with the land, with its incredible night sky with endless stars and curious Northern Lights. Maggie gets a taste of their lives when she arrives at the cabin in Lyosa to do her family research. It’s like walking back in history with no electricity or running water and gives her an experience of what previous generations had to face just to survive. I also admired the bravery of those who continued to resist despite knowing their capture would mean death or imprisonment and torture. 

Motherhood is also a huge theme in the novel, starting with the shock of great-grandmother Anna leaving Freja behind with her father when she was just a child. What caused her to flee and why did Atticus never try to find her? There are many different representations of motherhood, from women who leave their babies, to infertility and being a mother to someone else’s child. If Maggie and Jack were to become close again she has the prospect of being a stepmother while not being able to have her own children, something that echoes through the generations.  These women are linked by those experiences but also their talents, such as Freja’s Nordic fairy tales for children once told to her by her mother Anna. Maggie’s creativity also links back to a previous generation, with Liv’s drawings and a book of botanical sketches uncovered to Hellebore House. I loved how the author showed the war’s reach and how one tiny uninhabited island gave the young women a chance to let go of it for just one afternoon. Maggie is the conduit for all the drama of WW2 and these sections of the book are nail-biting in parts. Maggie’s present is more gentle and flows beautifully, resolving the secrets kept for three generations and in a way I didn’t expect. Amanda’s novels are real favourites of mine and this had everything – family secrets, hidden letters, forbidden relationships, espionage and some incredibly brave women who sacrifice everything for the people they love. This is a fascinating read should be on every historical fiction fan’s summer list. 

Out now from Headline Review

Meet the Author

Hi, I’m Amanda, and I absolutely cannot WAIT to share my latest novel with you.

THE GLASS KEY is a tale very close to my heart and inspired by the Norwegian Arctic island my husband and I bought when we were 29. Evie Woods said it’s ‘a captivating story that unlocks an emotional doorway to the past’, and well, I love that.

If you’re new to my work, you might like to start with THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE, inspired by a message I found scratched into the rafters of our Irish home, a two-hundred-year-old stone building perched on the edge of the Atlantic. The book was a Richard & Judy book club pick and translated into 8 languages. 

THE MOON GATE uncovers the secret behind a mysterious legacy – Towerhurst, an old house crumbling in a rainforest. It takes place across three locations: Tasmania (my home state), London (where we rented a houseboat for many years) and County Kerry, Ireland (where I now live). THE MOON GATE is my most sweeping and beloved book.

I’m also a geologist who explores the world’s remote places. I’ve worked on five continents, and spend months at a time out in the wilds. Writing novels provides a similar sense of discovery, though the conditions rather more comfortable!

You’ll find me on my website, Instagram (@amandageard) and Facebook (@amandageardauthor). I love chatting with readers, so please come on by.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“When Mark died I thought I’d start seeing him around more..”

From that fascinating opener this book becomes so many things: a meditation on grief; a witness to the AIDS crisis in 1984 New York City; a community’s anger at the gentrification of the East Village; a ghost hunt led by a company called Manhattan Remediation. Renata is a young dyke-about-town who has the ability to see ghosts, which has been happening more and more frequently as her friends have started dying of what has recently been named AIDS. So, when her best friend Mark dies, she assumes she’ll see him again. There’s no way Mark wouldn’t give her a chance to say goodbye, would he? But to her disappointment – and increasingly, her concern – Mark doesn’t appear. Renata has other problems, too. A mysterious, police-like force has begun ridding their East Village neighbourhood of anything abnormal or inexplicable. At first, she’s sure they’re scam artists, but it becomes clear they’re actually trapping ghosts. With her band of lovably eccentric pals and lovers, Renata is determined to fight back against the erasure of her friends’ memories and the sanitizing of her beloved New York.

Renata is our narrator throughout and I felt a kindred spirit in seconds. Her expectation of seeing her friend Mark seems odd at first reading, but when I realised he had died without her and she hadn’t known for a few days I was so sad for her. Mark is clearly the most important person in her life, they shared a living space when either one of them wasn’t sleeping at a lover’s place and it seems unthinkable that she wouldn’t have known. That she wouldn’t have felt it. That the sky didn’t cave in. When people say life goes on this is exactly what they mean – everything carries on as normal while you feel like a shrieking banshee. However, for Renata there’s an added element to this disbelief. She can see dead people. In fact she’s being plagued by the ghost of their friend Francois, who she definitely doesn’t want in her flat. So why hasn’t Mark appeared? It’s hard to accept that the powerful and deep emotions you share with someone have suddenly become one sided. I remember thinking when my husband died, we were so close, how can that line of communication be cut? Years later, a chance encounter with a medium left me questioning again, she definitely had Jerzy’s turn of phrase, his humour and tendency to flirt with the furniture, but why was he talking to her and not me? Renata and Mark had a complicated relationship, they each had lovers, but they did have times when they slept together. There was no possessiveness in life, but in death I could understand Renata’s desire to have him to herself.

I was reminded of Jill in the TV series It’s A Sin and the deep connections the residents of the pink palace had with each other. When her best friend Ritchie starts to deteriorate badly, his family take him back home and cut him off from the people who have lived with him. It’s devastating when Jill travels to his childhood home, only to be told by his mother that Ritchie is already dead. The author picks up on this in the novel, the families unable to live with their child’s sexuality rushing in near the end to claim them. This could be out of love, but is also a way of cutting them off from their community, not wanting the stigma of AIDS to touch their family. Some families quickly and quietly arranged funerals for their children without the people who loved them for who they truly were, often citing the cause of death as cancer so the neighbours didn’t know. I was a teenager at the start of the AIDS epidemic here in the UK and I remember feeling genuine fear. The government leaflet had a gravestone on the front with ‘don’t die of ignorance’ carved on it. I even remember a bizarre telethon type event called First AIDS, presented by comedians and DJs telling us which sexual acts were most risky, how to prevent contracting the virus and how to put a condom on. I was thirteen and I honestly believe that it informed by sexual behaviour from the offset – I was known by my friends in later years for two methods of contraception at all times and I’m sure that was down to how frightening it felt back then. There was enormous stigma and prejudice, but because I lived in a quiet village in a rural county it felt somewhat removed from me. Even though I had an Uncle who was obviously gay in hindsight, we never really talked about it. Reading this and knowing that, a few years earlier than First AIDS, death was a daily reality in the gay community of the East Village really made me realise how far behind and out of touch we were. 

The author skilfully switches tones from crushing reality, to horror and even humour at times which I really enjoyed. She doesn’t spare the realities of a death from full blown AIDS, in particular she tells us the story of Francois who is haunting her apartment. He is an angry ghost, throwing and pushing things, always making a noise and creating a horrible atmosphere, even before he appears. When he does he is known to vomit, pee on the rug and often lets out a terrible scream. Francois was a teacher, but when he started losing weight and sores were appearing on his face he was asked to leave because ‘his face was scaring the children.’ She details the secondary illnesses that would kill someone with the HIV, the lymphoma or other types of cancer or infection like pneumonia. Then there’s the encephalopathy and dementia. It’s no surprise, when we hear François’s story, that his ghost is angry. She talks about the guilt she feels for wanting him to die quicker, to stop his suffering. Renata’s mother, who never let on that she had the same gift as her daughter, said that spreading salt in the corners of problematic rooms helped soak up the negative energy, so she’s been trying baths with mineral salts but it hasn’t helped. There is some comedy in Francois as well as fear and it’s Renata’s irritation with him that made me smile. She knows she can’t live with him, but what to do? Another theme within the book is the gentrification of the neighbourhood, with talk of landlords trying to remove tenants in rent controlled apartments so they can renovate and earn more from a new one. A company called Manhattan Remediation are mentioned, claiming to be able to remove ghosts or entities from apartments. It’s discussed as a possible link to gentrification, a way to ‘clean up’ the neighbourhood. This is a proud community that wants to keep its history and its ghosts. When Francois finally pushes Renata to the edge she calls them and like the fourth emergency service Dr Silverman arrives with a faraday cage. Could this be the answer? 

I was really interested in the community Renata lives in and her job at the vintage shop. She also has other friends who help her sit Shiva for Mark – a Jewish week of mourning where the bereaved stop their daily activities and focus on grieving. Renata’s friends cover the mirrors and prepare food and they talk about their memories. This is a stark contrast to her visit with Mark’s lover Patrick where there is tension and anger on both sides and I was glad she had a loving community around her. The author has captured the resistance and pride of the gay community when they’re coping with stigma and suspicion. The warmth and empathy they show each other is moving. This is such a powerful subject and really succeeds as a piece of queer history in New York City, especially since most US deaths from AIDS occurred in NYC and San Francisco. It really embodies the fear and paranoia of that time perfectly, but also depicts a community of people for whom sex may be fluid but love is plentiful and loyalty is strong. For individuals already stigmatised by their sexuality and estranged from families, this community is their found family and those ties are unbreakable. As Renata observes, if the strength of her grief alone could compel Mark to appear then he would. The addition of Renata’s psychic abilities is a genre-bending idea that mostly works really well and accentuates how lost and confused she feels. I felt her need to keep living too, even though the pull of the dead is so strong. The way she relates her personal grief to the reader, in a time of unprecedented loss, is the strongest part of the book. 

Out now from RiverRun

Posted in Netgalley

The One Day You Were My Husband by Rosie Walsh 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I don’t usually like romance novels, but I do love Rosie Walsh’s novels. That might seem strange when often her novels are categorised as romance, but for me there’s much more to them than the more formulaic romances I see. Rosie Walsh creates such complex characters, facing heart-wrenching situations. This is definitely the case for our narrator Carrie Cole who’s a surgeon by profession, but since the premature birth of her twins has been more focused on home life. She and her husband Robin live in a draughty cottage on the moors, with a small ‘Roof’ (AirB&B) holiday let next door in the old piggery. Robin works in the world of medical philanthropy, matching investors to areas they can support medical causes and this is how the couple met. Nearby, her Dad lives with his wife Nicola, but he’s recently been struggling with dementia and may need to move into a home. Both Carrie and her sister Maya have a complex relationship with their mum, who is an international activist and charity worker. Carrie has been feeling the urge to return to work and has put out feelers with her old mentor Yanika about what steps she would have to take in order to level up to the required standard. There’s an event coming up for Roof hosts in Sweden, where Yanika works and they discuss meeting up for a conversation. She could do both in one trip. Carrie has never left the children overnight, although she knows they’re perfectly safe with Robin, in fact he gives her his blessing in the form of a generous booking of a lovely hotel near to the venue. Carrie had been looking at cheaper Roof accommodation, when a familiar name and face appeared on the screen. All of a sudden Carrie’s mind sweeps back to her twenties, where she’s dancing barefoot on a Thai beach with her new husband, Johan, mere moments before Thai police swarmed the beach with guns and arrested him. Carrie knows that Johan was sentenced to twenty years in a Bangkok prison, so how can he be in Sweden hosting a beautiful lakeside retreat? 

There were so many questions I wanted to ask during this novel, as Carrie’s narrative follows her present and a deeply traumatic past that she thought was buried, This is a love story but it’s also a mystery, as we see how the couple met when he came into the hospital with a trauma patient he’d helped. He travelled with them into the hospital. Carrie’s connection to him is immediate, but it’s incredibly deep and even though she knows she can’t pursue anything with him, she can’t stop thinking about him. Slowly, through flashbacks we piece together their story and I was devastated for both of them. Carrie pieced herself together after Johan’s court case with the help of her family, particularly her mother who had flown out to Thailand to use her influence and local contacts. Over time Carrie has hardened her heart towards Johan, feeling both betrayed and abandoned by him. Abandonment is a big deal for Carrie and her sister, after they were removed from their mother’s care as children when her advocacy and activism were so absorbing she’d overlooked their safety. Since then Carrie and Maya lived with their father who had a more stable home life. Both girls show signs of abandonment issues and a tendency to self-medicate their feelings. Carrie doesn’t eat when stressed and Maya has issues with alcohol, both of them display displacement activity like cleaning madly when they’re in distress. Robin has proved himself to be a safe harbour for Carrie and she calls him her rock. However, she can’t deny that she wants to know what happened to Johan and the urge to see him is stronger than she expected. I could understand why she needed this, to have someone ripped from your life in this way is devastating, but even worse would be the questions: was Johan really trafficking drugs? If not why did he plead guilty? How did he end up back in Sweden and when? Lost love is painful enough but when you’re left unsure of what was real there’s no sense of closure, Can Carrie meet with Johan and get her answers without her carefully balanced life back in the UK imploding? 

I really understood Carrie and I believed in her love story with Johan. Their connection leaps off the page like a flame and never goes out. I also had so much time for Robin, who is an incredibly supportive husband and dad. I was willing Carrie to be honest with him and explain why she still needed the answers. Carrie’s inner voice is so powerful that I believed in her utterly. She has the problems of every working mum who has gone through a traumatic pregnancy with incredibly premature twins and all the ailments that come alongside that. Her little boy still struggles with asthma and her instinct to be with them is a definite response to her mother’s inability to put her and Maya first. Carrie doesn’t want her children to ever doubt her love and commitment to them, but that has come at a high price for her own goals. Perhaps she’s even denied a strong part of who she is – that drive and ambition to the best doesn’t just disappear. She berates herself for thinking about Johan, telling herself she’s very lucky and has everything she needs, but does she? I loved how the author gave Carrie room to ask questions of herself and her closest relationships. Is there a part of her that chose to hide away after the birth of the children? Although she loves the feeling of being cared for and supported, where does caring end and control begin? In some ways her pursuit of Johan and the answers isn’t about her feelings for him, but her feelings for herself and the person she was when they met, I loved how Johan called her Carrie Cole, as if only her full name could encompass all the things she is. Part of me wanted their love to still be there, but the more rational part of me knows that long term relationships and parenthood are tough. Often what we long for in past relationships is a fantasy, one that doesn’t include vomit on the rug, temper tantrums and a Dad that’s slowly losing his sense of reality. Can Johan really be all that Carrie sees through her younger, love filled eyes? 

Once the questions start there’s no stopping this complex tale from unravelling and the tension builds as we realise there’s so much that Carrie doesn’t know. As Johan realises that Carrie truly knew nothing from their final moments in front of the courthouse in Bangkok he’s he’s confused. Has she really only just found out a week ago when she looked for accommodation in Sweden? He asks why nobody told her. But who should have told her? Who in her protective and much loved inner circle has been keeping secrets? Can she cope with another betrayal? The answers, when they came, were totally unexpected.. Nothing here is exactly as it seems, for both us and Carrie. What happened on her wedding day in Thailand created a huge scar across her timeline, with her life divided into before and after as if severed from each other, Now she knows there were tiny unseen strands of connection and the cut was never as clean as she thought. Despite telling herself, ever since that day, to make decisions with her head could her heart and her gut have been right along? This really was a heart-breaking love story, with so much depth and emotion for the reader to relate too. I was rooting for Carrie, both with her ambitions to return to work and her personal life. I felt an affinity with her discovery that she had allowed herself to become small and knew that only time alone, recovering and accepting the truth would help her make the right choices. Yet there was still an impulsive and romantic part of me hoping that love would find a way.

Out in June 2026 from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Rosie Walsh is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, the global smash hit THE MAN WHO DIDN’T CALL, and – new for 2022 – THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, a heart-wrenching, keep-you-up-all-night emotional thriller, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and stayed in the German top ten for several weeks.

Rosie Walsh lives on a medieval farm in Devon, UK, with her partner and two young children, after years living and travelling all over the world as a documentary producer and writer.

The Man Who Didn’t Call (UK) / Ghosted (US) was her first book under her own name, and was published around the world in 2018, going on to be a multimillion bestseller.

Prior to writing under her own name she wrote four romantic comedies under the pseudonym Lucy Robinson. When she isn’t parenting or writing, Rosie can be found walking on Dartmoor, growing vegetables and throwing raves for adults and children in leaking barns.

Posted in Netgalley

Love Lane by Patrick Gale

Posted on by thelotusreaders

A reunion. A journey. A longing for a place called home… When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane is obliged to sell up and sail home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned, and for whom he has never been more than a distant myth. His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is riven with doubt and ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is. Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much? LOVE LANE is a searing portrayal of escape and entrapment, and a powerful exploration of what home and family can really be.

I was thrilled when I found out that Patrick Gale had written a sequel to one of my favourite books of all time, A Place Called Winter. This first book followed Harry as a secret is discovered and he’s advised to leave the country by his wife’s family. Leaving both wife and daughter behind Harry embarks on a new life in Canada as a pioneer. This book finds a much older Harry living on his homestead with his dog and secret nightly visits from his neighbour Paul who he loves. When a woman and her young son come to Harry’s place looking for work, Harry says he has nothing, but that Paul might need help. He takes her to Paul’s and they settle her and her son into Paul’s cabin, separate from the main house. It only takes a few days for his whole world to change, with Paul’s houseguests now living in the main house. Harry isn’t all that surprised when Paul tells him they’re to be married, but assumes their arrangement will continue exactly as it did when Harry married Paul’s sister, who died a few years before. However, for Paul this signals the end of their relationship leaving Harry heartbroken. At the same time Harry has been receiving letters from his estranged daughter Betty who is now married. Her cabal of aunts have kept her away from her father but now she wants to get to know him and they start a tentative correspondence. So, years later when Harry is forced to sell the homestead he suggests a visit to England and with no set plan he sets sail for Betty’s city of Liverpool. 

Gale splits the novel into five narrators: Harry, Betty, her husband Terry, their daughter Pip and her husband Mike, with Harry closing the story. I know this character’s inner world so well but have never really seen him through someone else’s eyes. Liverpool couldn’t be more different to the wheat fields of Canada and it’s interesting to hear it described as it would have been when my mother was born there. I was experiencing my favourite city as my grandma and grandad would have done. It’s also a big change for Betty, from the moneyed world of the aunts and their large family home at Strawberry Hill. This is post WW2 and the city is rather grey and dismal, more dirty and industrial than it is now. Knowing the docks as I do it was strange to see it actually being used where now it’s all museums, hotels and galleries. If Harry finds Liverpool a little imposing and grey, Betty is shocked at his appearance, thinking he looks like ‘a man who has been through a series of shattering ordeals or a war.” This is a man who has worked very hard and never had spare money to spend on himself and Betty can see he is in need of clothes and a dentist at least. She expected more warmth, but can see that he’s a man of restraint who values his privacy. Will they even get on and what will her daughter Whistle make of him? 

Terry’s section focuses on his work as prison governor, with Harry arriving just as two executions are to be carried out, something that Whistle finds particularly difficult to cope with as their street becomes overrun with protestors and journalists. I found it interesting how women are kept sheltered from the details of prison life, perhaps a hangover from the reality of WW2. For Pip’s section we travel to Wakefield and Harry stays with their family for a couple of weeks. Pip’s husband is also in the prison service and they have children, making Harry a great grandfather. What she finds in Harry’s silence is someone who will listen and she can confide in, knowing it will be guarded as a secret. I was astonished about what she almost discloses. Mike is a very controlled individual who worries about money, Harry is perceptive and on walks with the dog realises things about Mike that no one else has. The effect Harry has on several generations of this family is fascinating for a man who is so taciturn and unable to reveal his true self. Gale paints a picture of a closeted England, with homosexual men furtively making secret connections in fear of the law. Terry has met many men who are imprisoned not for what they’ve done but for who they are something he seems to find unjust. He has known men who prefer men during the war, but hasn’t noticed that his own tailor is living with a man. Harry notices their matching rings straight away. There’s also a secret bar on the voyage across the Atlantic where Harry is invited by one of the stewards. It’s probably the only openly gay space Harry has ever been in and my heart broke for him as he glimpses a little of the freedom to come.

Another person who responds to Harry is his granddaughter Whistle, she doesn’t have her own narrative but we can see she’s very different to her sister Pip. Betty describes her as beautiful but sensitive, born ‘without Pip’s protective layers’. One evening close to the execution she has a panic attack in her bedroom and Betty is shocked when she finds Harry has come into the room, talking to her quietly and calmly, encouraging her to breath slowly and bringing her anxiety down much quicker than Betty can. We can see this side of him in his chats with Mike also, proving that he’s an emotionally intelligent observer who never lets on the depths of his own heartbreak. We can see so much about the mid-Twentieth Century in these generations, from the Great Aunts of Harry’s generation to Pip we can see the collapse of the social order. There’s a drop from upper middle class to lower middle class in two generations. Betty bemoans the fact that a girl as beautiful as Whistle would have had a ‘mantle-piece crowded with invitations but rationing and bereavements and shortages had made everyone so cautious and life rather drab.” There are devastating moments delivered with such matter of factness – Harry’s only proof that Paul loved him destroyed by blackmail, Mike’s handling of the family dog, Pip’s secret about her hospital appointments and more than anything the chillingly robotic way Pierrepoint and his executioner apprentices measure out the correct drop to break a young man’s neck in the name of justice. Behind it all I felt a huge anxiety about where Harry was going to go? Would Betty ask him to stay or will he have to make his home back across the Atlantic with strangers. I cried in those final pages with Harry. Patrick Gale has created a character I’ve grown unexpectedly fond of and I didn’t want him to live out his final years alone. This is a beautiful companion to A Place Called Winter full of compassion and unspoken yearning, not just for a lost lover but for a place to call home in the twilight of life. 

Out Now from Tinder Press

Meet the Author

Patrick Gale is a cellist, gardener and patron of North Cornwall Book Festival, Penzance LitFest and the Charles Causley Trust. He lives with his husband, the farmer and sculptor, Aidan Hicks (aidanhicks dot com), on their farm at Land’s End. In addition to his latest, Love Lane, published on March 26, 2026, his eighteen novels include Mother’s Boy (2022), Take Nothing With You (2018), which was his fourth Sunday Times bestseller, Rough Music (2000), Notes From an Exhibition (2007), A Perfectly Good Man (2012) and A Place Called Winter (2015). In 2017 his two part drama Man in an Orange Shirt was screened by BBC2 as part of the Gay Britannia season. Continuing to be broadcast regularly around the world, this won the International Emmy for best miniseries and is now in development as a musical. He is working on a television adaptation of A Place Called Winter and a stage version of Take Nothing With You. Extracts from the BBC documentary All Families Have Secrets – the Narrative Art of Patrick Gale can be seen on his website galewarning dot org. The garden at Trevilley was featured on Gardener’s World and is opened under the National Garden Scheme every June.

Posted in Netgalley

The Secret Thread by Eve Chase 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out May 28th from Michael Joseph

Meet the Author

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

Say hello @evepollychase on Instagram and Facebook