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.
“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.
All Blythe Carney ever wanted was to become a hotelier and run her family’s business, the Hope Square Hotel. But fate, and her grandfather, intervened and it fell into her younger sister Rae’s lap, taking her dreams with it. Now Blythe owns Still Water House, the most exclusive guest house on Pin Hill Island, but she can’t help but feel she’s still not living the life she was meant to.
Rae Johnson had no interest in taking over the hotel, her dreams lay elsewhere, but when she ended up with the family business her sister had set her heart on, her sense of duty to continue their family legacy with her husband was too strong to ignore.
Now, fifteen years later, newly widowed Rae is struggling to keep the hotel afloat and she knows that selling it could be the final straw in her already fragile relationship with her sister.
What do you do when your sister lives the life that you’d set your heart on? And when the perfect storm is brewing, surely, it’s time to put aside the jealousy and disappointment that can tear a family apart, and fight for the future you have always dreamed of?
I love the joy and care in Faith Hogan’s writing and this has been a brilliant book to sit back and enjoy while we’ve been having a few weeks of very warm weather. Her characters always have so many layers and usually plenty of secrets and these women are no exception. I also feel like she cares about them and wants us to understand their journey. The author takes us back and forth in time to give us the story of the Hope Square sisters, Blythe and Rae. In the present Blythe runs a very successful guest house on Pin Hill Island, at Still Water House, the home she shares with husband Kip and daughter Siggy. By contrast her sister Rae lives alone in what was the family business and the only hotel on the island, the Hope Square Hotel. The sisters couldn’t be more different. Blythe has the drive and ambition of a great business woman whose only dream was to gain her degree and take over at the helm of the family business after her grandfather. Blythe runs a tight ship, even at home, and while she and Kip are an excellent team on the business side, of late there’s been some tension between them. Their main point of contention is Blythe’s treatment of their daughter Siggy who is a teenager ready to start planning the next stage of her life, perhaps going away to university? Blythe has closed her mind to this idea, she rarely lets Siggy hang out with other kids on the island and refuses any activity she believes is unsafe. Kip is becoming frustrated, not only does he feel taken for granted, he wants his daughter to be allowed to grow up. However, there is no reasoning with Blythe. Siggy often escapes to work at Hope Square with her Aunt Rae. Rae feels fragile, not surprising since she’s a recent widow, but there’s something more that seems to be keeping her paralysed, unable to make plans and move forward. She and Marcus didn’t have children so she values her precious time with Siggy, but her relationship with Blythe has never fully recovered since Rae and Marcus took over the hotel. How did this sequence of events happen?
The author takes us back and forth in time with both sisters so we can see events and decisions that led us here, but she also uses it to let us in on secrets the sisters have kept from each other. We as readers have the full picture, so behaviour that seems unreasonable or excessive to other characters has some context for us. It’s very frustrating to see characters misunderstanding each other completely. One such instance is Blythe’s behaviour when a new resident comes to Pin Hill Island. Val and her grandson Danial are refugees, he’s eager to find work and she’s keen to join groups and make friends. Blythe’s behaviour around Val seems utterly irrational, but there must be a reason probably buried deep in the past. I found Blythe a challenge I must admit but I couldn’t quite believe she was just a hateful person. The major question that keeps popping up is why would the girl’s grandfather make the inexplicable decision to pass the hotel to Rae and her boyfriend Marcus? The answers will come, but needless to say there were some men in this book who needed a bit of reeducation. Meanwhile as Danial volunteers at the hotel for Rae to get some work experience, he and Siggy spend some time together. Could there be romance on the cards? If there is, Blythe will be definitely have something to say about it and I worried it would have implications for her relationship with her daughter.
All these misunderstandings and secrets are set against a picturesque backdrop on this isolated island. The incredible scenery is clearly what draws people to visit, but is there still enough to sustain two hotels? Blythe is determined to get in a tourist guide and in one of the best comic moments she has a guest from hell, who she suspects is an inspector. I have to admit I imagined Maggie Smith playing this role at her most imperious. The vision of Blythe having to tolerate smoking, moving furniture and waiting on this woman hand and foot made me laugh. Her eventual response to 48 hours of this treatment was priceless. There’s a lot of trauma to unpack here. There’s so much loss for both these women, even after they lost their parents. There are themes of bereavement, motherhood, domestic abuse and being a victim of crime as well as the central family feud. As always the author gives these subjects the depth they deserve and they do have impact especially when it’s a revelation from the past that gives us more insight into the characters. What I like is that she always keeps us hopeful, that there’s a chance for healing and light in what seems a dark world at the moment. As the tension and miscommunication builds I just wanted the two sisters to talk openly and honestly, but it reaches a dramatic conclusion I didn’t expect. This is a great summer read and something of an escape from reality, full of intrigue and family drama but with bucketloads of warmth and hope.
Out now from Aria Books
Meet the Author
Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best seller. She is a USA Today, Irish Times Top Ten and an Amazon UK Number 1 Best Selling writer of contemporary fiction novels. Her stories have charmed readers around the world – she’s sold internationally and translated widely. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.
The Bookshop Ladies was shortlisted for an An Post Book Award in 2024.
The Sisters of Hope Square is her brand new summer read coming June 2026. It is a gripping and poignant story of two sisters divided by jealousy and disappointment who must put their differences aside to save the inheritance that drove a wedge between them decades earlier.
She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.
She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and their Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!
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.
After sixteen-year-old Emily’s father tragically dies, she is forced to live with the only family she has left, an aunt and grandmother in the heart of Savannah, Georgia in a house as beautiful as it is mysterious.
But all is not what it seems with the Bell family; they’re hiding a magical secret.
When Emily meets the alluring Wyn, she forms a connection that feels like it was always meant to be. As the spark between them grows more powerful, her life takes an exhilarating and terrifying turn; but every step closer to him, takes her a step further away from her family.
Emily will find out that blood is always thicker than water…
THERE’S NO BOND GREATER THAN MAGIC
YA fiction isn’t usually on my radar, but I love both Alice Hoffman’s and Sarah Addison Allen’s mix of small town America and witches so I gave it a try. I was sold on the cover comment that this was ‘Buffy meets the Gilmore Girls’. It certainly isn’t short on atmosphere, with a charming setting in Savannah and Bell House in particular. For Emily who is used to the Welsh climate, it’s hard to acclimatise to the soupy heat that leaves everyone dripping in minutes – their laundry basket must be full every day. The Spanish moss that hangs from the trees like a natural brand of tinsel is actually parasitic, showing us that not everything is as beautiful as it first appears. Bell House is breathtaking and Emily’s first glimpse is overwhelming, calling it ‘Sleeping Beauty’s castle through an Instagram filter’. Everything has that southern charm, including her aunt Ashley’s breakfasts that have so much variety it feels like going out to brunch every morning. What Emily hasn’t yet realised is that she has the power to change the weather just by changing mood and Bell House is equally responsive to the people who live there, but its sentience isn’t just benign. Emily’s grandmother Catherine is in tune with the house and drips with Southern charm, her sayings are pure Deep South hokum; “you look like you were rode hard and put away wet” made me giggle out loud. As she starts to educate Emily in her heritage as a witch I wondered whether her sweetness was just as synthetic as saccharin.
I felt like the plot was paced awkwardly, feeling both too slow and too fast at once. This was a slow burn at first, setting up both the atmosphere and back story of the Bell family. While this is understandable as the first book in a series, it did feel like the plot took a back seat to description. Conversely, the central romance seemed to proceed at the speed of light with an intensity that felt unnecessary at this early stage. It felt as if their connection was simply announced rather than slowly building up through their emotions. I wanted more from her new friends Lydia and Jackson, both of whom promise fun and mischief and are incredibly loyal to Emily despite only knowing her a few weeks. I liked Lydia’s role as the naughty twin and I hope their friendship develops in the next book. Jackson is taken with Emily and I was expecting some rivalry between him and Emily’s love interest Wyn. I also loved her aunt Ashley who cares for Bell House and its inhabitants so beautifully, but has a dry wit and plenty of sarcasm. She doesn’t take to Emily right away and she’s a great antidote to Catherine’s syrupy sweetness. She never leaves the house and doesn’t pretend to be happy about her role, there’s far more going on here than meets the eye.
Catherine is the strongest character, stunningly beautiful and clearly very powerful. She takes her role as Emily’s mentor and caretaker very seriously, but there’s very little emotional connection. Catherine isn’t a cuddly grandma at all and imposes quite a few rules on Emily including a ban on dating until her ‘becoming’ when she comes into her full power as a Bell witch. It is Catherine who relates the story of the family of witches who have lived in this house and her history with Emily’s father Paul, who didn’t want Emily to grow up knowing about her potential powers. I loved that the author addressed issues from within that history that resonate today, especially the witch’s role as wise woman to others in her area.
“She helped women who wanted to control the size of their families […] there have always been women who help others in that regard.”
This is important to Emily who soon discovers she’s a natural apothecary, somehow able to identify most of the plants in Bell House’s garden along with their specific uses. I liked the idea that witches tend to have a speciality, with Catherine being an elemental witch. She suspects Emily of having many different powers, shown clearly when they encounter an unexpected attacker in the cemetery one night. This is a terrifying incident for Emily, even though she doesn’t know the full implications of her actions yet. Catherine tells her that their powers don’t signify them as good or bad, but the opposing forces they work with must be treated with respect. It felt like the book really picked up the pace towards the final third, with Emily’s becoming on the horizon and Lydia planning her a birthday party. This contrast shows us how extreme Catherine’s regime is and reminds us that Emily is a teenager who should be getting to know other young people and looking forward to dancing the night away on her birthday. Instead she’s heading out to a cemetery in the dark, for a potentially dangerous initiation into the Bell tradition under a guidance of a grandmother who doesn’t always seem to have her granddaughter’s best interests at heart. This is where Ashley comes into her own and I hoped to see Emily’s relationship with her aunt develop in future books. The becoming is going to be a reckoning for Emily, Catherine and Wyn in an action packed finale that is gripping and unexpected. There were elements of this novel that I really enjoyed and others I felt were underdeveloped or rushed. I wanted more depth to Wyn and Emily, with perhaps a few twists to their relationship considering their age and Jackson’s interest in Emily. The atmosphere and setting really stood out most, the action sequences were dramatic and fast paced and there were characters with a lot of potential. I am very interested to see how werewolves are going to integrate with the story and how Bell House will respond to Emily after her becoming. I really hope we also see more of that conflict between normal teenager and all powerful witch, as well as more about Savannah and its history. The sequel is out now so look out for my review coming in the next few weeks.
Sequel The Witch and the Wolf is out now from Magpie Publishing
Meet the Author
Lindsey is a Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author, podcaster and vociferous defender of The Cheesecake Factory. Her books include the I Heart series, Christmas Fling, The Christmas Wish, Love Story and YA fantasy series, The Bell Witches.
When she isn’t writing, Lindsey moonlights as a co-host on Tights and Fights, a pro-wrestling podcast on the Maximum Fun network. Yes, really, pro-wrestling. And when she isn’t writing, podcasting or ruining her life with social media, Lindsey is most likely to be found reading, watching literally anything on television, texting the group chat or planning a karaoke night (please note she cannot sing).
Born and raised in South Yorkshire, Lindsey lived in London and New York before settling in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and their two cats.
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
It was the place they all knew best – the elegant light-filled rooms in the house, plus its niches and nooks in which they took refuge, the wood which sheltered the wildlife, the fields over which they walked. Whatever happened at Woodspring, and whether they lived there or not, the notion of it remained constant. Since the house was built in 1810, the Danes have always lived at Woodspring. Over the generations it has given them shelter, solace and joy.
War brings change, and the next three generations of the family will lead very different lives. Peace is shattered, pain is unavoidable, loves are found and lost, but Woodspring is constant, and will always draw them back….
A tender novel of love, refuge and the question of where we call home when life takes us on unexpected paths, Woodspring is a beautiful ode to the countryside, to family, and to our timeless connection to place.
This novel is told through three chronological sections, each covering a generation of the Dane family who own Woodspring, a small but grand country house. Built at the turn of the century, it’s a house that never seems to change substantially while the world races forward. We see those changes through the people who live there: Harry is the owner of the house in the 1930s in the lead up to WW2; Nell becomes the owner in the latter part of the 20th Century; Joey owns the house and estate in the present. Through them we see massive changes in class, affluence, and women’s rights but also the far reaching consequences of the Second World War. Each section feels like a vignette of that time, but in the second and third sections we can see how the choices Harry made affect future generations. All the while, Woodspring sits as a sort of haven and seems steadfast while our character’s lives feel transitory and fragile.
I was deeply drawn in by Harry and Faith’s story in the first section, made more powerful by the backdrop of war and the risks taken by both of them. Harry is married as the book begins, the perfect match in his parent’s eyes for the duty of looking after the estate. They have a daughter called Nell who is just a toddler. Their relationship was never a grand passion and a rather old fashioned marriage in terms of her being the right sort, but her family connections are in the USA. If the truth is told she has never taken to Woodspring, finding it a bit quiet and gloomy. There’s also very little to do in such a small village. As war approaches and Harry puts himself forward for active duty, Wendy wonders whether she and Nell would be safer returning to family in the USA. No promises are made from either of them, not even an assumption that their lives will resume as normal afterwards. No one knows what afterwards will look like. Harry departs for the Highlands and training for the Commandoes. It’s in the midst of this tough training period that his wife writes that she would like a divorce. She has met a man who is wealthy and can keep her and Nell provided for. I was amazed at the lack of shame in her openness about marrying this man for his money, but she’s also seemingly oblivious about Harry’s feelings for his daughter. However, when Harry meets Faith he knows deep within and for the first time, that he is in love. They make no promises, but give themselves wholly over to each other in an incredibly tender meeting at a secluded bothy. Each knows the other might not survive this war, but in case they lose track of each other he gives her a name in London. Suggesting that if her employment finishes in Scotland, she can contact them for lodgings and work. Would they ever find each other again? Meanwhile, as Harry’s younger brother also joins the same regiment, Woodspring waits patiently for their return.
Our second section follows Nell, Harry’s daughter, who has lived her early life in America, but now works in Geneva in a very high stress job for an NGO. She implements the response to humanitarian crises around the globe and lives alone. It’s a total shock when she receives news that she has inherited Woodspring from her largely absent father, Harry. Nell negotiates a few weeks away from work to travel to England and decide what she must do with the house and land. She’s shocked to find a largely unchanged house, complete with a couple who work as housekeeper and all round maintenance man. It’s weird for this very modern woman to be treated as the mistress of the house, who eats at certain times and always in the dining room. The housekeeper explains that although her father died years ago, he had made provision for her Uncle Robert to live there until his death. He had sustained a brain injury in the war and was often very childlike, keeping a strict routine helped and the time he spent with his huge model railway in the attic. It’s when she goes up to investigate the attic that she meets Joey and falls in love, but not in the way you might expect. Her feelings start to change as she sees what this house represents – home, stability, a memorial to her family and a huge project to work on. Will she sell and move back to Geneva or will her heart keep her here?
Finally we come to the present and meet a girl called Mia who works for MI5. Independent and determined, she is utterly focused on her career when Joey walks into her life. Joey is a vet, working in London and living in a small apartment. However he tells Mia about a family home and land he owns, left by his mother. One weekend they drive to Woodspring and for the first time Mia sees the huge responsibility Joey has been carrying. The main house is now a nursing home, while Joey lives in the flat over the stables that used to be home to the housekeeper and her husband. It’s the land he has to come to some decisions about, with offers from developers on the table, Joey doesn’t know whether to sell the whole estate and commit to life in London, but there’s something about being on this land. It’s a sense of security and connection with the land that I understood. I have lived most of my life next to the River Trent, literally having the bank in our back garden as a child to my first flat where the bank was only a field away and to my last home, a little barn conversion on the Lincs/Notts border where a short lane took me to the bank in ten minutes. The first thing I did was walk down there, take off my shoes and stand at the top of the bank. Whenever I want to feel that security and connection I do the same thing, grounding myself.
I felt that the last section suffered a little in comparison to the first two, perhaps because of their more dramatic events or circumstances. WW2 tears people apart, forcing them to live an alien existence, often alone and in very different parts of the world. We see the hardship of Harry’s training and his incredible resilience in being able to survive when it’s put to the test at Dunkirk. The war definitely heightens those tender feelings between Harry and Faith, so when he’s is back in London and goes to look for her my heart was racing. The dramatic events of that night are written so vividly that I knew the outcome would determine the rest of their lives. The horrors of the Blitz are depicted so well a I felt like I was there. Nell’s story shows her work is once removed from her father’s but still vital, organising a response to terrible events around the world means she doesn’t get to be there in person to see the devastation. We can also see the impact of her mother’s choice to remarry in the USA and having a mostly absent father. Nell’s mother is as self absorbed as a I suspected, pursuing the preservation of her looks with plastic surgery and pushing Nell to accept a job with her stepfather and come home – an offer that Nell rejects with so much vigour I sensed some tension around their relationship. Joey changes everything for her and she has to face her own childhood demons, her decision not to have children and a growing love she never expected. Her instinct to shelter and protect Joey is almost instinctual and I felt like the time she spends at Woodspring brings her closer to understanding the man her father was.
As for the final part I was expecting it to come from Joey’s perspective so I was a bit surprised to meet a completely new character. Mia is an interesting woman, in some ways like Nell in her independence and determination to do well in what is still a bit of a man’s world. We are taken into a case she’s working and the complexities of that job and meeting someone who she could build a life with. Joey is a calm, solid and patient presence in her life which tells us a lot about his background. If they’re to build a life together they also have to factor in the ownership of the Woodspring estate, which overwhelms Mia when she first sees it. They are left with land, including a wood, and Mia can see potential in it but how will they make it work. I felt sad to imagine it broken up into parts, but it may be the only way to keep some of it. What’s never in doubt through, is Joey’s connection with this land that’s exactly the same as my connection to the River Trent. I was desperate for him to retain some part of it because he belongs there and we can see it in the way he’s replenished after going back to visit. It’s his connection to Nell, to her father and mostly Robert who he came here to play trains with when he was a little boy. Woodspring is his constant in a world that is often frightening and overwhelming: each generation’s touchstone. This is a touching and gentle novel, exploring our connections to each other but also the places we call home.
So it turns out that March is the month of mysteries and thrillers, suspense, plot twists and secrets aplenty! These are my favourites from the month and although I haven’t managed full reviews for some of them, these are my favourites. Wishing you all a Happy Easter weekend, hope you get some good reading and relaxation time with some treats. ❤️📚 🐇
St Monans, Fife, Scotland 1790. Two women are forced to publicly repent in church, one for adultery the other for breaching the sabbath. Wealthy housewife, Florrie, and salt serf, Eliza, form a quick and unusual bond over their mutual humiliation. So when Florrie’s husband decides she must accompany him on a trade venture to Iceland, she insists Eliza comes as her maid.
Far from home, isolated and fearful, the two women grow ever closer. Then Florrie’s husband reveals his sinister plan: he will leave her in Iceland, banished for the shame she has cast upon him. Florrie must escape, but when she turns to Eliza for help she realizes nothing is quite as it seems . . .
Based on the true story of the British Empire trying to annex Iceland as a penal colony, this books tells us about subjugation and control of women by husbands, serf owners, and ministers. Kate Foster always has strong female characters and Florrie, Eliza and Hallgerd are no exception. This was a historical thriller, full of suspense and with a few plot twists too. It’s about what happens when women reject the shame men and society say they should feel and embrace their transgressions, using them as a stepping stone to true freedom. My full review is coming up soon.
Twelve years ago, Carrie married Johan on a beach in Thailand. But as the sun set on their perfect day, armed men swarmed the island and her husband was taken, never to be seen again.
Carrie is now happily remarried; a mother of two. The past is firmly behind her – until she stumbles across Johan by accident online. He is alive and well.
As the memories of their passionate relationship flood back, Carrie is compelled to find out what happened on that beach, and why Johan never got in contact.
The man who promised her a lifetime of love is now a mystery she must solve. But are the answers worth risking her marriage, her family, and the life she fought so hard to rebuild?
The truth, it turns out, is more shocking than any lie . . .
I read this novel on my weekend away and became absolutely absorbed in the story, a love story that’s also a mystery. It’s heartbreaking, romantic but also sinister and unsettling. Our main character, Carrie Cole, has been a brilliant surgeon but gave up when she had very premature twins and felt the need to be at home with them. She lives with her husband Robin in an old cottage with a holiday let in the old piggery next door that they let through the Roof app. It’s there that she sees Johan again for the first time since his arrest in Thailand. Her urge to see him is part emotional but also a desperate need to know what happened and how he ended up back home in Sweden when he should still be in prison. I loved how the author played with our expectations of who to trust and whether Carrie should think with her heart or head. She’s safe, she’s happily married, she’s a mother about to return to work so we know the right choice to make. Right? Full review coming later in the month.
Famed children’s author Dame Eleanor Kingman has summoned her family and friends to her exquisite manor house on the cliffs. They’re celebrating her birthday – and her latest number one bestseller in her series of books based on a mother fox and her cubs.
But the night before the party, Eleanor receives an email: an email that threatens to expose the lie she’s kept up for over half a century.
Someone knows her secret. Is it her estranged literary agent? Is it her ex-husband, to whom she no longer speaks? Is it the nanny she fired all those years ago, who always did have a knack for storytelling? Or is it one of her three daughters, all of whom have a stake in the publishing empire she has built…
With a TV crew arriving to film a documentary of her life, Eleanor needs to find out who sent the email – and preserve her multimillion-pound career.
But when push comes to shove, and it’s time to tell the truth – will anyone actually believe her?
This was a brilliant thriller from Sarah Vaughan, based around a wealthy and respected children’s author and her birthday party. There’s enough tension in the air already with an event so big, but Eleanor’s three daughters each have secrets, her illustrator has turned up early for a confrontation about her percentage, there’s an odd man hanging around the grounds who approached her grandchildren and dog, plus an old couple who have apparently lost their way from their caravan park into the gardens. Told in the tense two days before the celebrations, we also get flashbacks to key moments in Eleanor’s past that might give us the answers. You’ll absolutely devour this book like I did.
When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, the city reels – and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with her murder.
As their trial begins and headlines scream for justice, rumours of bullying spiral into something darker: whispers of rituals, obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong.
But then the girls take the stand – revealing a chilling defence no one saw coming – and the jury must question everything: the motives, the evidence, even their own judgement.
Who’s telling the truth? Who can be trusted? And what really happened to Christian Shaw?
Let the Witch Trial begin . . .
Harriet Tyce’s brain works differently to other people’s! We follow the trial of two teenage girls through the eyes of a juror called Matthew who is a surgeon. He’s everything a good juror should be – reliable, intelligent, rational, objective, pillar of the community – but he seems strangely excited about this trial, having been told several times he could have been excused because of his job. As the trial moves on he seems to deteriorate: he stops wearing a shirt and tie, has a rash that spreads and irritates him, starts to drink and eat junk food. The story of witchcraft and teenage girls is intriguing, but does it constitute murder? Who is the blonde woman that catches Matthew’s eye and seems to follow him to the flat? There are so many layers to this story that your mind will be blown in the final chapters!
Ten years ago, Hope left Somerset with a fatal secret and a broken heart. She has spent a decade in the shadows, living a quiet life of penance to protect the man she once loved – the world-famous author Ambrose Glencourt.
YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.
Then, she opens his latest bestseller. To the world, it’s a brilliant work of fiction. To Hope, it’s a betrayal. Every private moment, every dark truth, and every ‘fatal disaster’ from that summer is laid bare on the page.
YOUR TRUTH IS A LIE.
But Ambrose has changed the ending. In his version of the story, Hope isn’t the victim. She’s the villain.
Now, Hope must step out of the shadows to reclaim her narrative. But in a world of glamorous elites and whispered secrets, who will believe the word of an unreliable woman against the word of a literary icon?
Two narrators. One truth. And a secret worth killing for.
This novel is another triumph for this incredible writer, with so many layers and very timely themes around rich white men and their assumption of their own genius and their right to exploit those around them. Hope is a compelling character whose one summer with Ambrose and his wife Delia sets her life on a different course. To find the events of that summer in a book, prompts her to go to the police and tell her story to detective Nat. Is this the ramblings of a mad, middle aged woman or is something very wrong at Shadowlands, the Glencourt’s mansion. Hall beautifully shows us young love and how a girl who loves books can be manipulated by someone who believes young, naive lower class girls who worship writers are theirs for the taking. I love how Hall weaves in the concept of playing with reality, how we construct stories and who has the right to tell them.
There’s something out there in the darkness. By morning, bones lie in the snow, picked clean.
Zach knows the moods of the mountains – his mother taught him before she was gone. His father and the other men on the ski weekend think they know better though.
Drinking and boasting, they laugh in the face of the icy conditions.
But Zach understands what danger looks like. Can he survive the wilderness, and all the monsters within it?
This is a stunning new novel from Tracy Sierra, whose debut novel NightWatching was one of my favourite books of 2024. This is just as good as that thrilling debut, if not better. Set in one weekend in the mountains, this is no ordinary trip or boy’s own adventure. Everyone who is coming is there to be impressed by Zach’s dad and his latest business venture. Everything has to go right. Everything is told through Zach’s eyes and we can see him slowly lose his innocence as he notices that his dad doesn’t have half the knowledge about the outdoors that his mother had, everyone else can see that all his gear is new, flash and not what a regular skier or hiker would use. Zach can also see they dislike him. Russ is the only other kid on the trip and he knows that these men are going to lead them into danger, simply because they’re selfish and full of bravado. They must get to do exactly what they want and damn the consequences. Tracy Sierra gets inside this little boy’s mind perfectly and I was desperate for him to survive, but with a strange monster on the prowl outside and the terrible weather it’s hard to know what he can do to escape. Unless the real danger is on the inside. This author shows shades of Stephen King and The Shining in this brilliant story, bristling with menace and childhood fears.
I thought that today I’d share with you the last ten books I’ve bought. Sometimes people think that because I review books on my blog, I get given every book I review but that’s far from the case. I still buy an enormous amount of books every month. It’s my main indulgence, aside from Doc Marten boots and a weird fascination with animals in clothes (probably best left unexplored but I’m sure it has to do with Mr Tumnus). I’d do get proof copies but they are becoming more scarce these days so mainly they come from the reviewing I do through the Squad Pod Collective – a group of blogger friends who have come together to share the book love – or through blog tours. More often it’s digital copies that are available, either offered by the publisher or through NetGalley. There are many reasons I might buy a book, as discussed last week there are come authors who are must-buy and are usually pre-ordered for a discount. Another reason might be that I’ve loved a book on Netgalley or digital proof and I’d like a finished copy. Then there’s the bookshop purchases where I have a terrible love of spredges and beautiful book cover art as well as the story itself. Finally comes those I buy second-hand in charity shops, second hand bookshops like Barter Books in Alnwick or Vinted, which is a great hunting ground for special editions. I also collect various copies of old classics or my favourites – I have about six different copies of The Night Circus for example. Currently on my radar is the Folio Society copy of The Colour Purple which is stunning but will take up a whole month’s book budget! Here are my latest buys:
I love Will Dean’s Tuva Moodysson series and pre-order those always, but his stand-alone novels I tend to buy on Kindle. This has all the hallmarks of a heart-stopping thriller.
Three of them adrift on the narrowboat. Mother, son, and wickedness.
Peggy Jenkins and her teenage son, Samson, live on a remote stretch of canal in the Midlands. She is a writer and he is a schoolboy. Together, they battle against the hardness and manipulation of the man they live with. To the outside world he is a husband and father. To them, he is a captor.
Their lives are tightly controlled; if any perceived threat appears, their mooring is moved further down the canal, further away from civilisation. Until the day when the power suddenly shifts, and nothing can be the same again.
I left the parking ticket bookmark in this one, because I bought this from my local bookshop on Saturday and then my other half went to Screwfix so I read five chapters in the car out of boredom. I wanted to read this before I watched the BBC series and as usual I’ve left it to the last minute. I recently thoroughly enjoyed Rachel Pariss’s novel about Charlotte Lucas and I’d forgotten how lovely it is to be in Austen’s worlds so I thought this would be light relief, both from other reading and the news.
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, we know the fates of the five Bennet girls. But while her sisters are celebrated for their beauty or their wit, Mary is the “plain” middle sister, the introvert in a family of extroverts, and a constant disappointment to her mother.
Lonely and lacking connection, Mary turns to the only place she feels safe: her books. Determined to be “right” since she can never be “beautiful,” she prepares for a life of solitude at Longbourn.
One by one, the other sisters move on: Jane and Lizzy for love, and Lydia for respectability. Mary is destined to remain single, at least until her father dies and the house is bequeathed to the reviled Mr Collins.
But when that fateful day finally arrives, the life Mary expected is turned upside down. In the face of uncertainty, she slowly discovers that there is hope for the “plain” sister after all. . .
Experience the witty, life-affirming tale of a young woman finally finding her place in the world.
This book falls into the special edition category as it’s one I might normally have bought on Kindle, but couldn’t resist this beautiful signed edition complete with stunning spredges and endpapers.
It’s the summer of 1939. London is on the brink of catastrophic war. Iris Hawkins, an ambitious young woman in the stuffy world of City finance, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a technical whizz at the BBC’s nascent television unit.
What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into an adventure of otherworldly pursuit – into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread. Soon there are Nazi planes overhead. But Iris has more to contend with than the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, in the twisted passages between past and present, a fascist fanatic is travelling with a gun in her hand.
And only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever.
Just look at those beautiful spredges. I’m itching to dive into this but need to get my blog tour reading done first.
As you can see another ‘nostalgic’ purchase. Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite books of all time, despite the problematic middle bit where too many people die at once, so when I bought Essie Fox’s beautiful retelling through Catherine Earnshaw’s eyes I couldn’t resist this new edition of Wuthering Heights. The spredges are to die for!
With a nature as wild as the moors she loves to roam, Catherine Earnshaw grows up alongside Heathcliff, a foundling her father rescued from the streets of Liverpool. Their fierce, untamed bond deepens as they grow – until Mr Earnshaw’s death leaves Hindley, Catherine’s brutal brother, in control and Heathcliff reduced to servitude.
Desperate to protect him, Catherine turns to Edgar Linton, the handsome heir to Thrushcross Grange. She believes his wealth might free Heathcliff from cruelty – but her choice is fatally misunderstood, and their lives spiral into a storm of passion, jealousy and revenge.
Now, eighteen years later, Catherine rises from her grave to tell her story – and seek redemption.
Essie Fox’s Catherine reimagines Wuthering Heights with beauty and intensity – a haunting, atmospheric retelling that brings new life to a timeless classic and lays bare the dark heart of an immortal love.
As you will know I’ve been raving about this one after reading it last month and yes I do have a proof copy but I do like to support independent publishers, authors and bookshops so I went to Lindum Books for her signing a few weeks ago. Sadly, by the time I arrived they’d run out of copies so they were waiting for new stock and Rachel kindly supplied a signed bookplate for it.
Lincolnshire, 1914. As the First World War approaches, three women are living, trapped between the unforgiving marsh, the wide, relentless river, and the isolation of the fen.
Their lives are held fast by profound grief, haunted by the spectres of the past. Trapped by the looming presence and eerie stillness of a hospital that has never admitted a single patient.
Eleanor longs to escape. To make a life with the man she loves, leaving her sister, and all her ghosts behind. Clara’s marriage is crumbling and violent and she yearns for peace and security for both herself and her innocent children. Meanwhile, Lily, a formidable force of will, stands resolute against the relentless tide of change. She will stop at nothing, no matter the devastating cost, to ensure that life, and her family, remain frozen in an unyielding embrace of the past.
The author, Rachel Canwell, grew up with the story of this forgotten hospital. Isolated, stocked weekly and cleaned daily but never admitting a single patient. The hospital was real, tended by her family for over sixty years and set against the ethereal beauty and loneliness of the Fens, is the inspiration for her novel.
This beauty is the independent bookshop copy of Almost Life that came from Lindum Books. I always love the artwork from Kiran’s books and this is a stunner.
One chance encounter can define a lifetime
Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her Ph.D. at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman.
The moment the two women meet the spark is undeniable. But their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love. It is the beginning of a relationship that will define their lives and every decision they have yet to make. Spanning cities, decades and heartbreaks, fate brings them within touching distance again and again.
But will they be brave enough to seize the life they truly want?
My next purchases are two for the Kindle and after recently reading and reviewing her third Cal Hooper novel The Keeper, I decided I need to catch up on the first two in the series. I’d previously read her Dublin Murders series so I know I enjoy her writing and I read The Keeper through Netgalley so these are a treat for when I have a gap ?!
The Searcher covers Cal Hooper’s move to Ireland and the fixer-upper he’s bought in a remote Irish village, thinking it would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force, and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens.
But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing, and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can’t make himself walk away.
Soon Cal will discover that even in the most idyllic small town, secrets lie hidden, people aren’t always what they seem, and trouble can come calling at his door.
The Hunter takes us back to Ardnakelty and blazing summer, when two men arrive in the village they’re coming for gold. What they bring is trouble.
Two years have passed since retired Police Detective Cal Hooper moved from Chicago to the West of Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less – in his relationship with local woman Lena, and the bond he’s formed with half-wild teenager Trey. So when two men turn up with a money-making scheme to find gold in the townland, Cal gets ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey. Because one of the men is no stranger: he’s Trey’s father.
But Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
My final book came from the indie Northodox Press and features a place I know very well indeed. The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool is a famous landmark I’ve known all my life, with my mum being a Liverpool girl. A former grand hotel, designed to look like the interior of an ocean liner it still has spectacular bones although its more recent furnishing choices in the original tea room have made it look more like a nursing home. Every time I go past it we say someone could make a lot of money doing that place up, it could be gorgeous. I live in hope, but currently she’s a strange mishmash of styles from art deco to faux leather BarcaLoungers. It’s a great cheap place to stay in Liverpool and my dad particularly enjoyed the prostitute’s card that was slipped under his door in the middle of the night!
Where better to work than the famous Adelphi Hotel?
Alistair Monroe is keen to make his way in Nineteenth Century Liverpool. The Adelphi is a landmark known for its grandeur, drawing many visitors, including Clemency Martin, an American psychic.
She too needs to make her way. But Alistair discovers that power and darkness lie at the heart of the hotel, and he must finally take risks to bring the truth to light. Step into the atmospheric world of the Adelphi…
So that’s all my recent purchases and buying secrets, but I’m sure there’ll be more next month, if I can resist The Folio Society that is.
It is a summer day unlike any other Margaret has ever known.
The Smith family have left the town where they live and work and go to school and come to a place where the sky is blue, the sand is white, and the sound of the sea surrounds them. An ordinary family discovering the joy of getting away for the first time.
Over the course of the coming decades, they will be transformed through their holiday experiences, each new destination a backdrop as the family grows and changes, love stories begin and end — and secrets are revealed.
Getting Away takes us into the lives and the secrets of four generations of the Smith family, through their holidays. From an east coast beach in the UK just after the war to the early 21st Century, Maggie is central to this, moving from childhood to old age. Through each character in the novel, the author creates snapshots of the century from Maggie’s father Jim and his war injuries to an renewed openness about individual sexuality and her brother Tommy having to police the first Pride in London. He’s worried about the lads at work and their response, he’s not keen either but change is the only constant. We can also see the huge changes in social mobility across the generations. We start with Jim and Betty and their daughter Maggie just affording a day at the beach with a picnic brought from home. Later, Maggie’s brother Tommy and his wife Debbie buy an apartment in Spain and then her granddaughter Melissa is the first in the family to go ‘travelling’ as a young woman as opposed to having a holiday. The shifts are seismic when seen together like this and it made me realise that my own grandchildren will look at me and my husband and realise we were born in the last century. Just like I did with my grandma who was born in 1913, they’ll probably imagine all the changes we’ve seen in that time. That’s what reading this felt like, as morals, finances and our ability to connect with others changes beyond recognition. When Robert takes a holiday with his friend Fitz while Susan is pregnant, they have to send a telegram to one of his destinations to get him to come home urgently. By the next generation, Melissa is island hopping around Asia and keeps them all updated via Instagram and her blog. What is amazing about Kate Sawyer is this doesn’t feel contrived and all these things in the background are just that, because the real drama is happening within this family and the secrets each generation keeps from the next.
Maggie is at the centre though and hers is the most carefully guarded secret. I loved how she and her mother Betty slowly grew to understand each other, but also how one secret breeds another. Her husband Alec knows Maggie is vulnerable when he meets her on a break with her friends, but he’s looking for a wife who won’t make demands and will be happy to travel around the world for his job buying fabric. He is a protector and he remains that way throughout her life, although things do change within their marriage. Maggie has panic attacks near the sea, although her friends don’t know why. We know something happened on a day by the sea when the Americans from Jim’s work travelled with them, but she keeps the secret for decades. However, she isn’t the only one with a huge secret. Maggie’s brothers couldn’t be more different. Tommy comes across as very brash and often drunk, very proud of how well he’s doing at work and happy to splash the cash around. Robert is the baby of the three and a lot more sensitive than his brother. I rooted for him and his girlfriend Susan who he’s desperately in love with. As secrets start to come out their relationship suffers, but I was sure they’d never stopped loving each other. Their children are the final generation we get to know, but it felt like Robert was impacted most by decisions made about his life, even though it was a common choice in that situation. I love how this author writes about her character’s inner lives, she even makes me root for people when their behaviour isn’t great. Once I’m a few chapters in these are real people and I’m feeling every one of their emotions.
Having once had a spectacularly bad holiday with my lovely family I was amazed that they all persevered over years. There are all those little details about each character and how they irritate each other. When they undertake a trip to Florence with Maggie, Betty is exhausted and the others are bored. Maggie likes to stride about the city while her husband Alec is working, sight-seeing and learning about art, architecture and the local food. With all good intentions she wants to make sure those she loves get the most out of being here, but everyone else wants some shade and a cold drink. Tommy is more of a drink by the pool and English food sort of person, it’s clear he has a drinking problem and it doesn’t help his temper. Bringing us into the 21st Century, I loved how Joe and his husband Piotr’s daughter Maja has travelled all over the world when she’s only a toddler. This family have gone from greenhouse tomatoes by the North Sea to being more like the Americans who visited Jim and Betty and scoffed at how backward the British seemed. They also go through every complicated situation a family can, with secrets, affairs, divorce, violence and the addition of those who become ‘found family” like Robert’s lifelong friend Fitz and his daughter. I loved that their friendship survived huge upheaval and betrayal, and that it happened on a holiday pilgrimage. I particularly enjoyed Maggie’s solo holiday after her divorce and her sexual adventure, beautifully written and much needed in order to heal from the past and claim her future as a desirable woman. Maggie’s favourite book is A Room With a View so she felt like a kindred spirit and the passion in that book obviously appealed to this woman who had to reach middle-age before desire was a priority. I loved that this family kept its in-laws close, even after divorce and we can see that as everyone comes together for Joe’s wedding. I became utterly absorbed by this family, so much so I felt like I’d seen one of them as a client. It emphasises the secret complexity of everyday lives and made we think about the fascinating narratives in both sides of my own families. The ending felt like the best one we can ever hope for, which is a family taking time and trying to heal together.
Out now from Zaffre Books
Meet the Author
Kate was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK where she grew up in the countryside as the eldest of four siblings, after briefly living with her parents in Qatar and the Netherlands.
Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and producer before turning her hand to fiction. She has previously written for theatre and short-film.
Having lived in South London for the best part of two decades with brief stints in the Australia and the USA she recently returned to East Anglia to have her first child as a solo mother by choice.
The Lotus Readers 