Thriller – Page 9 – The Lotus Readers

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Posted on 30th Apr 202430th Apr 2024 by thelotusreaders

Sally Hepworth is a new author to me, so I was interested in reading this thriller based within the Australian child protection system, most notably one foster home called Wild Meadows. Three girls grew up there under the care of Miss Fairchild, described like an 1980’s Barbie doll, and thought to be one of the best foster parents in the system. The three girls are now grown women. Jessica was the first long term foster child and now runs a home organising business and is married to Phil. Lately, she’s been suffering panic attacks and is using benzodiazepines to control her anxiety. Norah is a ballsy and confrontational woman who doesn’t stand for any nonsense. She is currently being blackmailed by a taxi driver whose nose she broke in an altercation. She sent him a picture of her breasts so he didn’t go to the cops, but now he wants more. Alicia is a social worker in a child protection team, trying to save children who might otherwise end up with a childhood like hers. She has a tentative relationship with her housemate Meera who she has just kissed, but struggles to be vulnerable and accept that she’s worthy of love. They are called back to Wild Meadows when building work unearths the body of a baby. As they travel back to where they spent their childhood, memories start to emerge about their traumatic childhoods at the hands of Miss Fairchild. It becomes clear that their present problems are an echo of that terrible start in life. How will they cope with digging up everything that happened back then and what will happen when Miss Fairchild arrives?

I felt incredibly sorry for Jessie who was the first foster child, conditioned to love Miss Fairchild (who she calls Mum) and to do anything that pleases her including cleaning the house from top to bottom. She and Miss Fairchild are a team and even though the work is sometimes hard, she knows Miss Fairchild loves her. Jessie is the favourite and being the favourite is wonderful – until someone else comes along. When Norah arrives without warning, Jessie is put out. So she tries even harder to please her mother and doesn’t understand when she’s rejected. It’s hard to watch, because even Norah can see it’s like kicking a puppy. Jessie’s confusion and feelings of dejection have turned her into a people pleaser. She’s now married to Phil, who seems kind but still Jessie is compelled to please him and appear perfect at all times. If she’s not perfect, no one will love her. Before she leaves with her sisters Jessie reaches a new low by stealing benzodiazepines from a client’s bathroom cabinet. When she’s rumbled, Jessie switches off her phone and leaves with her sisters. I really enjoyed Norah, who comes to Wild Meadows second and ousts Jessica from the favourite position. It’s not that Norah dislikes Jessie, it’s just that she’s been in other homes and knows that it’s best to be the popular kid. Despite this the girls start a tentative friendship and soon Norah is sleeping next to Jessie and sticking up for her at school. They are sisters and sisters stick together. Norah is now single and lives with her three rescue dogs, named after the first thing they destroyed after they arrived; Converse, Thong and Couch. liked her sense of humour and her ability to look after herself, although the taxi driver issue is out of hand and Norah knows that if he goes to the police she’s breached her good behaviour

order and may go to prison. Alicia, made the least impression on me as a child but perhaps the greatest impression as an adult. She soon bonds with the other two girls and they give each other some semblance of a normal home, playing music together, staying up late talking and devising ways to deal with their foster mother. Now Alicia is battles everyday for kids in the system. It’s as if in saving them, she saves herself. Her friendship with Meera is strong but when it starts to become something more she panics. Never used to the full package when it comes to relationships, she can’t believe that she can keep everything she and Meera already have plus have a romantic relationship too. Sex and love don’t go together in Alicia’s world. She’s avoiding the issue by travelling with her sisters, but when Meera turns up out of the blue she has to bring her past and present together.

Between these timelines there are small chapters that I found really interesting because although we don’t know who is speaking, we know it’s with a psychiatrist or therapist. This unnamed woman is talking about her childhood, which is truly horrific to read and a heads up for anyone who is triggered by reading about child abuse, this is a really tough. To be honest the abuse depicted across the book is physical, sexual, mental, financial and spiritual. I think this narrative really got to me because I grew up in an evangelical church and even though my experience there wasn’t abusive, it was as if women were second class citizens only there to be good, supportive wives and defer to men. What this woman goes through is much worse and as she relates it to the psychologist he seems to have weird ‘tells’ that the also speaker notices. As her story progresses he leans forward, perhaps more interested then neutral. She can see emotions in his eyes as she talks. He’s sympathetic. He’s distraught about what she’s been through. Is she telling the truth or is her story embroidered, gathering momentum as she sees him react. Playing his emotions, but to what end? I was hooked by this narrative, horrified but fascinated in equal measure because there was definitely something going on.

As news reports start to bring in a stream of younger women the authorities refer to them as ‘the babies’. The three sisters hadn’t remembered them except for Amy, a cute two year old who fell in love with her older sisters, infuriating Miss Fairchild who wanted the babies to love only her. What if Amy is the baby under the house? Surely now Miss Fairchild will be taken in for questioning? Sally Hepworth has written three women here that you will really be rooting for, in fact you might even identify with one of them. Miss Fairchild is the perfect villain, with her angelic looks and ability to manipulate any story to place her in a better light. Does this make her a murderer though? It isn’t just the central mystery that keeps you hooked though. Will Norah’s altercation with the taxi man catch up with her? The tension slowly builds around Jessie whose latest client noticed some diazepam missing and isn’t letting it go. When Meera arrives unannounced Alicia has to face her friend, but also explain their close relationship to her sisters. Can she accept Meera’s love and her own sexuality? The author keeps this tension up to the very end, with a couple of revelations and a twist that was really clever and I didn’t expect. I read this so quickly, desperate to see some characters get their comeuppance and others to see justice done. I especially enjoyed the resolution of the therapy sessions. This book will definitely keep you reading, but be prepared. You might not be able to put it down.

Out now from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Sally Hepworth is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including The Good Sister and The Soulmate. Her latest novel, Darling Girls, was released in Australia in September 2023, and will be released in North America in April 2024.

Drawing on the good, the bad and the downright odd of human behaviour, Sally writes incisively about family, relationships and identity. Her domestic thriller novels are laced with quirky humour, sass and a darkly charming tone. They are available worldwide in English and have been translated into twenty languages.

Sally lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her three children and one adorable dog. She has recently taken up ocean swimming (or to put it more accurately, ocean dipping)

Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Profile K by Helen Fields

Posted on 4th Apr 20247th May 2024 by thelotusreaders

I’m going to say up front that I’m a massive Helen Fields fan, with The Last Girl to Die being a particular favourite of mine. Her last novel introduced us to the unusual and complex psychologist and profiler Dr. Connie Woolwine at The Institution. Connie makes a cameo here, but the undoubted heroine of this tale is Midnight Jones. Midnight lives with her twin sister Dawn ( see what the parents did there) and is her main carer, since their parents chose to go travelling when Midnight finished university. Dawn was affected by lack of oxygen at birth leading to Cerebral Palsy. It’s effects are very individual to the patient, but it can cause both physical and intellectual disabilities. Dawn is profoundly affected, needing care 24/7 and that’s why Midnight is desperate to keep her job at Necto. She needs their higher than average pay packet to cover the costs of care. The company like to present themselves as an ethical firm, starting with their space age offices, filled with plants and trees that help create a better work environment. They have their fingers in many pies, but Midnight is a profiler and every day works through thousands of applications for universities, the military and other organisations, passing some applicants through to be interviewed and rejecting others based on assessment data alone.

Necto’s testing systems are so sophisticated, there’s nothing about the applicant they don’t know. In assessments, virtual reality head sets show images and the applicants every response is recorded from intelligence to levels of empathy. Then, dependent on the parameters for the particular institution they’re applying to, they are accepted or not. However, on this particular day Midnight finds a candidate who isn’t run of the mill, in fact he’s a one-off. In training, a candidate like this is jokingly dubbed a ‘Profile K’- for killer – Midnight finds a man who has recorded as showing zero empathy. When she watches the footage he was shown through her own headset, she is sickened by what she sees. This is way beyond the normal films shown to illicit empathy, it’s as if the machine couldn’t get a reading so has chosen more and more disturbing and violent images that should provoke empathy and disgust. Yet none comes. Unable to compute the response and also where such extreme footage could have come from, Midnight decides to take this further but her supervisor Richard Baxter isn’t interested. So she goes over his head, telling his boss that she’s found a Profile K. Surely they have a duty to report him, what if he’s dangerous? What if he kills?

I’ve read three great thrillers this weekend in quick succession but this was by far the most inventive, with a hint of dystopia and a touch of social justice that was right up my street. I empathised with Midnight’s situation, determined not to let down her sister Dawn but struggling to pay for just enough care that Midnight can go to work. There is no room for a social life or romance. Their heads are just above water, but there’s no flexibility or empathy for her care role within her company, despite it’s apparent ethics. She takes a big risk taking her findings higher than Richard Baxter, because if she loses her job how will she afford the care Dawn needs? Yet she can’t ignore what she knows. Especially when the worst happens. A young woman is killed very close to where she and Dawn live and although Midnight doesn’t know this at first, the torture methods used are very close to a scene from the film shown during the Profile K’s application process. The victim was subjected to the death of a thousand cuts, which would have been both a painful and long drawn out way to die. Midnight is horrified to find that her boss would rather keep her discovery under wraps and she’s reminded of her non-disclosure agreement. What reason could they have that’s better than saving the lives of future victims? Midnight has read about the psychologist and profiler Dr Connie Woolwine and has a theory to run past someone with her expertise. Not expecting a response, she sends a message and is pleasantly surprised when the unusual doctor calls her late at night to talk it through. Midnight is scared of the consequences, but sure of her theory – could Necto have known about the Profile K? What if they showed the violent material on purpose to trigger a response? To turn someone with killer potential into a killer for real.

I absolutely loved this belting thriller, because it was complex and intelligent but also full of human feeling. I guess this might sound strange when there’s quite graphic violence involved in some scenes, but they’re balanced by the pure depth of feeling Midnight has for her sister and later on for the elderly lady they begin a friendship with. I loved how authentic Midnight’s caring situation was, with a very clear struggle between wanting to provide the best help for someone she loves but feeling the fear of that sole responsibility. The anger she feels towards her parents is very real, because although she understands their need to follow their dreams, their freedom has curtailed her own. She can’t make any life decision without factoring Dawn in. How could she have a romantic relationship? What if she falls ill herself? Having been a carer I know how lonely and exhausting it can be. We can see the pull between home and work life, in that they both hinder and are dependent on each other. Parts of the book are genuinely terrifying. There is a scene that’s going to stay with me, like that episode of Luther where a woman gets undressed and climbs into bed followed by a ceiling shot where a man slowly slides out from underneath as if he’s been working under a car. It’s that combination of vulnerability and evil. We’ve all done that walk home where we get inside and lock the door, then take a deep breath and know we’re safe. To be attacked in that moment is heart-stoppingly scary! In the end, everything had to stop for those final chapters as I raced through to find out what happens. I was glued to these scenes, made all the more terrifying because the victim doesn’t have a clue how much danger she’s in. It’s one of those finales where I put the book down and realised every muscle in my body was tense! I needed some yoga stretches and a few episodes of Friday Night Dinner before bed to unwind. This is an absolute cracker of a read and I highly recommend it.

Published by Avon 25th April 2024

Meet the Author

A Sunday Times and million copy best-selling author, Helen is a former criminal and family law barrister. Every book in the Callanach series has claimed an Amazon #1 bestseller flag. ‘Perfect Kill’ was longlisted for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger in 2020, and others have been longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish crime novel of the year. Helen also writes as HS Chandler, and has released legal thriller ‘Degrees of Guilt’. In 2020 Perfect Remains was shortlisted for the Bronze Bat, Dutch debut crime novel of the year. In 2022, Helen was nominated for Best Crime Novel and Best Author in the Netherlands. Now translated into more than 20 languages, and also selling in the USA, Canada & Australasia, Helen’s books have won global recognition. She has written standalone novels, The Institution, The Last Girl To Die, These Lost & Broken Things and The Shadow Man. She regularly commutes between West Sussex, USA and Scotland. Helen can be found on X @Helen_Fields.

Throwback Thursday

Just Between Us by Adele Parks

Posted on 4th Apr 20243rd Apr 2024 by thelotusreaders

For some reason, I wasn’t fully engaged with Adele Parks’s last novel Both of You and I wasn’t expecting a sequel. I didn’t really like any of the characters involved. Kylie has two pseudonyms and two lives: half the time she’s Leigh, wife to Mark and stepmum to Oli and Seb; the rest of the time she’s Kai, wife to Dutch banker Daan Jaanssen and lives in an upmarket apartment with luxury clothes, cosmetics and holidays. The two seem to balance Kylie’s complicated needs, she’s equally at home having dinner in a Michelin starred restaurant as she is eating sand filled butties on a cold beach with the kids. Kylie’s other important relationship is Fiona, her friend of many years who has become part of the family and unofficial aunty to the boys. There isn’t a single person in Kylie’s world who knows about her double life, until one day she disappears. Now the whole world knows about Kylie’s bigamous marriages and the husbands and children are dragged into a police operation and a media frenzy. This sequel picks up after the first, when we’ve just found out who has been keeping Kylie prisoner. Just when we think it’s all over, we’re only halfway there.

I won’t ruin any of the twists and turns of either book, because this is one of those you need to start without any idea what’s going on. We have the original characters including the rather wise and interesting DCI and we have small chapters from every point of you. However, there are some newbies too and it was here where the book really took off for me. I was so eager to know what the hell was going on and where these people fit into the original story. We are in the depths of lockdown and Kenneth has been shielding alongside his grown-up daughter Stacie. Stacie is in the early stages of recovery from cancer treatment and she has fought hard to keep living. She deliberately doesn’t look at herself but knows she looks a little beaten up with her shorn hair and the scarring. Sadly, she has the added complication of amnesia after falling so dangerously ill so she doesn’t even remember treatment or anything before that. Thankfully she has Kenneth to fill in the blanks and he seems like such a caring and loving dad, luckily he’s also a retired GP so he’s perfectly placed to reassure Stacie and support her recovery. They have a quiet routine of daily dog walks, cooking and board games. They’re in the town of Lyme Regis and Stacie does feel like she knows the place and her dad has told her about her engagement to local lad Giles. She called the wedding off two weeks before the date and moved to Paris. Then something odd happens. Stacie is on the beach when she feels a sensation of being watched. Up on the promenade there is a woman staring at her with a fierce intent. She wonders if this is someone who knew her from before. So, she makes her way over, keeping a safe social distance and introduces herself, explaining that she might look a little different, because she’s had cancer. No, the woman says, you’re not Stacie. This is a moment where the hairs go up on the back of the neck, but we don’t know who the woman is or how well she knows Stacie and Kenneth. What possible reason could she have to confuse a woman who’s had cancer treatment and lost her memory?

I enjoyed having more input from the husbands and Kylie’s two stepsons this time around. The boys are incredibly loyal to her, despite being hurt by finding out about her second husband and let’s not forget, all of them are grieving. Daan Jaanssen also shows an incredible amount of loyalty and concern, especially considering he’s being charged with Kylie’s kidnap and murder. Does this mean he didn’t do it or is he putting up a smokescreen in the hope of walking free? Mark is angry and bitter, perhaps because he’s was her husband first. He is on the verge of making mistakes because of that anger. Seb and Ollie show maturity and enormous love beyond their years and put their own Dad to shame. The short, sharp chapters keep the momentum going and definitely have that ‘one more chapter’ addictive quality. Be prepared to set aside a day to finish it when you can’t put it down. This is definitely one of those sequels where you need to read the first novel, there’s a little bit of exposition about Kylie’s ordeal but not too much. The main question is what happened to her afterwards? Is she dead as the police think? This is a great thriller from Adele Parks and it made me feel back on track with loving her writing.

Meet the Author

Adele Parks MBE is the author of twenty-three bestselling novels including the recent Sunday Times hit Just Between Us and the audible Number One sensation One Last Secret. Over 5 million English editions of her work have been sold and she is translated into 31 different languages.

Her number one bestsellers Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck were both shortlisted for the British Book Awards and have been optioned for development for film & TV.

41,000+ 5 star reviews have kindly been written by her fans on Amazon 🙂

She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency: two charities that promote literacy in the UK.

Adele was born in North Yorkshire and has lived in Botswana, Italy and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey.

In 2022 she was awarded an MBE by King Charles III for services to literature.

Connect with Adele Parks on Twitter @adeleparks, Instagram @adele_parks and Facebook @OfficialAdeleParks or visit her website for more information.

Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

Posted on 30th Mar 202424th Mar 2024 by thelotusreaders

Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away.

Antagonish by Hugo Mearns

My grandad taught me the first few lines of the poem above. I think it appealed to his sense of humour. I thought it was a riddle and I used to ask ‘but is he there or not?’ This is the very question this whole book revolves around from the first line – ‘there is someone in the house’. Our unnamed narrator wakes in the night as a strange noise breaks through her sleep. I was told by a book reviewer I respect enormously that this was brilliant and she was absolutely right. Although I drove my husband crazy by waking him up to ask if he remembered locking the door. He hadn’t always and I knew I wouldn’t sleep until one of us had crept downstairs and checked. Preferably not me. This is the situation all of us dread, waking to that unexpected noise in the night and finding there is an intruder. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her?

The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique voice this mother has. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – mainly fear. There’s the heart-stopping tension of that first night, the immediate threat rendering everything else unimportant. Yet there are other fears lurking underneath – will the police believe her, will it stir up questions about her husband’s absence, what will her father-in-law make of what has happened? She is waiting for people to doubt her and the reader doubts her too. Always on the lookout for unreliable narrators, I did wonder whether I should trust what she was experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: a raspy harsh voice when he’s angry then more of a soft, weedling voice. A voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. As he does this right next door to their hiding place, it’s even more terrifying. Her little girl whispers to her mum that it’s the ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares, he sits in the corner of her bedroom at night and whispers to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions? The author plays with the reader beautifully. Just as I was starting to think the narrator is completely crazy, she addressed my concerns.

‘How nice it would be to be crazy instead of correct. For t all to be a psychotic break. To have her husband come down those stairs. She’d pop out of the hidden place relieved – rated – to meet his look of confusion’.

This is a woman who is used to being misunderstood and there’s no shortage of men around, happy to convince her that she’s strange, hysterical and marked as different in some way. There’s an awful moment, recalled while hiding, when her husband told his father he was not going to continue studying law. She hears his father’s fury down the phone:

‘You never behaved this way before you met that girl. Christ. She’s disfigured’.

Our narrator has vitiligo – a long term skin condition where areas of skin lose melanin and become paler, creating a patchy complexion. People stare and perhaps mistrust her, worried they may catch a skin disease or worse. Added to this, she’s a newish mum full of hormones, perhaps she’s a bit anxious and over-protective. She’s recently bereaved, having nursed her terminally ill mother-in-law. Maybe she’s not in the best frame of mind. All of this and the fact that she’s a woman, mean the police will be unsure or just plain rude about her. They keep explaining there’s no evidence: no footsteps in the snow; nothing of any value is stolen – in fact the items she does mention are probably lose or mislaid by the children. They don’t sound like the type of things someone would steal. They’ll turn up.

While hiding from one monster, we learn that she’s battling another in the shape of her father-in-law. Honestly, I have never wanted to climb into a book and punch someone more. He is a bully, but everyone else placates him. He is ashamed of his son, even more ashamed of his disfigured daughter-in-law. He hates the noise of his newborn grandson and his wife apologises! Even while his wife is dying, he sits with his feet up watching television and creates holy hell if he’s disturbed. His daughter-in-law does all the work and is rarely appreciated or thanked. He wants his grandson to man up and stop being a wuss. Worst of all he’s aggressive, violent even. Having him in charge of her children is the worst outcome of all. This mother is also fiercely protective. A passing incident where a stranger commented on her daughter and pulled the drooping strap of her sundress back onto her shoulder, really bothers the mother. You can feel her hackles rising in much the same way she reacts when her father-in-law criticises her son. She has very keen instincts and it’s fascinating to see how those instincts can be eroded, mainly by men who still consider women a hair’s breadth away from hysteria and the asylum. It shows that we’re not just gaslighted by individuals, it can be institutional, perpetuated by organisations like the police force or as I’ve found in my own life, the medical profession.

The whole setting is brilliantly eerie. A secluded mansion house with woods behind and five acres of open pasture between them and the next house. The house was built in 1722 with two staircases, higgledy-piggledy rooms and even it’s very own graveyard. She loves the house, even though it’s totally impractical and a nightmare to heat. She’s got to know each creak and bang, it’s night noises, but never imagined when she viewed the house that she’d be fleeing into the secret space next to the chimney, where the builders walled in the labyrinthine brick work. They never imagined being walled in. It’s a place where ghostly presences and hidden secrets would be easy to believe. Yet it’s not all scary. There are some wonderfully tender moments between the mother and her children and we can feel how torn she is when she has to be sharp with them, to keep them quiet and safe. I had no idea where this story might go and the author was one step ahead of me all the way. I might have finished this incredible thriller, but I’m still carefully locking the doors at night and when the cat decided she’d rattle our door to upstairs at 3am my heart did beat a little faster. I can’t believe how assured and psychologically complex it was for a debut! If you only buy one thriller this year, make it this one.

Out now from Viking

Meet the Author

Tracy Sierra was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. She currently lives in New England in an antique colonial-era home complete with its own secret room. When not writing, she works as an attorney and spends time with her husband, two children, and flock of chickens. Nightwatching is her debut novel.

Netgalley

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French.

Posted on 17th Mar 202414th Mar 2024 by thelotusreaders

Charlotte and Alec Salter have four teenage children and live in the small village in East Anglia. We meet them on Alec’s 50th birthday where a big evening party is planned for most of the village as well as family. Yet at the beginning of the party there are no Salters present. Charlotte went for a walk and hasn’t returned. Alec did same, but they didn’t go together or in the same direction. Fourteen year old Etty is worried. The last of the Salters and yet to leave home she is starting to panic. She loves her mum, but if she is gone, for whatever reason, that means she has to spend two years at least in the company of her father. Just the two of them. Alone.

In the days that follow as the police investigate, there are rumours that Charlotte and family friend Duncan Ackerley were having an affair. Of course it was more widely known that Alec was seeing villager Mary Thorne, in fact his own daughter heard him on the phone to her from the other line the night of the party. When the Ackerleys invite the Salters for Christmas Day, only Lottie turns up at first, her brothers are late and Paul is probably giving it a swerve altogether. Yet Etty thinks it would be worse to sit at home, staring, worrying and jumping at every sound. As dinner time approaches, the Ackerley’s start to wonder where Duncan has got to. He’s been out for a walk, possibly down to the boat as there is a super high tide and he needs to move it. It’s Etty and Giles that start to look for him and he does try to shield her eyes as they come closer and see that Duncan is slumped in the water, dead. We move between the party night and the Christmas days that follow and twenty years later when all the Salters are once again in residence at the family home.

Everything about the house is dated and dilapidated, including their father Alec who is succumbing to dementia. Etty, ever the lawyer, is organising his move into a nursing home and the clearance of their parents possessions. For this job she has found a bright and organised woman called Bridget. She gathers the siblings and tells them that the easiest way is for them to put specific coloured post-its on their must have items, then she takes away the rest for sorting, selling and recycling. It’s emotional, especially since there are now only three of them. Their brother Paul never coped with life and the loss of their mother and sadly committed suicide on the anniversary of her disappearance. Meanwhile, now a TV personality, Morgan Ackerley is home to record a podcast on that Christmas, speculating on what happened to Charlotte and his father. This is going to stir up the village and make life difficult for both families. When a sudden event leads to yet another death, the police are called and a new detective looks at the old files as well as this new case. Are they linked in some way? Despite her boss seeming to warn against digging up what’s been long buried, this detective is determined to find out what happened to Charlotte Salter.

Seeing how much these families have changed over time is so interesting and I found myself wondering how different the Salters and Ackerleys might have been if this crime hadn’t happened. Etty melted my heart a little bit because she’s clearly so close to her mum and on the night of the party she’s the one who’s trying to raise the alarm because she knows something isn’t right. The boys are largely off doing their own thing and seem almost inured to the state of their parent’s marriage. The consensus is they’ve probably had a row, but Etty knows that despite a row, or their dad being on the phone to Mary Thorne at 2am the night before, there is no way that her mum wouldn’t turn up to his birthday party. She has always kept up appearances in that way. She even looks at her father and wonders whether he could have killed her. Her relationship with each parent couldn’t be more different, there’s a distance between Etty and her father both in the past and the present. In fact he doesn’t seem that invested in any of his children. Yet Etty can still imagine the smell of her mum’s perfume and what she would be wearing and I could imagine Charlotte hugging her daughter, her perfume just one of the many scents that signify home. With only the boys and her distant father left who will she go to for hugs? I could feel her panic as realises that after Christmas, the boys will go back to jobs and university and she will be left alone with their father for two years. I could also see the shadow of this huge loss in the adult Etty: an awkwardness about whether the family kiss to greet each other or not; keeping a lawyer’s professional manner at all times; doing all the organising and keeping busy so she can remain detached. She doesn’t cry, even when finding memories of their childhood. She holds herself stiffly, almost brittle and I wondered how much it would take for her to break.

There are many ghosts here. It’s not just Etty who was changed. They all feel the loss of their brother Paul deeply and he’s the empty chair at the table, even now. They tiptoe around each other, trying not to open old wounds but when a fire is started at Bridget’s home a new murder investigation is opened. Either the arsonist didn’t realise Bridget was at home, or didn’t care. Was their aim to kill the house clearer or was it to hide evidence that she’d unwittingly taken into her home alongside the Salter’s belongings? I found this mystery so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading and I loved the psychological aspects of how these unsolved crimes had affected the families and the village as a whole. There were a couple of crucial points past and present where everyone I suspected seemed to be going for a walk alone – without even having a dog as an excuse! I was suspecting that Lottie’s husband wasn’t as advanced in dementia as she seemed, but couldn’t be sure. The reveals were satisfying, but it was the methods of concealment that really blew me away and I loved how thorough the investigating detective was. She wanted to be sure, whether or not it disturbed or upset some people and I loved that about her. Mainly I thought about how the author successfully showed the long term effects of a crime like this, even years on from the actual incident. These children were all changed forever and the villagers have lived under a fog of suspicion for years. Etty particularly left me thinking of all the events I’ve been able to enjoy with my mum over the last 50 years, that she and Charlotte had missed out on. Finding a balance between the real emotions that surround a crime and creating a page-turning mystery is difficult, but here I think the authors have really pulled it off.

Out 29th Feb in Hardback from Simon and Schuster

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together

Random Things Tours

The Collapsing Wave by Doug Johnstone

Posted on 12th Mar 202412th Mar 2024 by thelotusreaders

When I first met the incredible being Sandy in The Space Between Us I had no idea that there would be a sequel, never mind a trilogy. I grew up at the time when home VCRs were becoming affordable and we rented the Star Wars films so many times that I’m sure if we added up the hire fees we probably bought them. Doug Johnstone’s second novel has something in common with the original trilogy in that this second outing is much like The Empire Strikes Back, it’s darker in tone and it looks like our heroes may be beaten. Heather, Ava and Lennox come up against the worst traits of human nature; fear, hate and paranoid self-preservation seem to be winning and it’s the military’s role to carry this ideology through.We start several months after the last book ended as Sandy was reunited with the rest of his species at Ullapool and disappeared into the sea loch. Our three heroes seemed set for different fates as the research scientists and police who’d been tracking their journey finally caught up with them. Ava is confronted by and wreaks revenge on her abusive husband who pushed her to the edge of suicide and now tries to take her baby Chloe away. At the beginning of this novel we find her in Edinburgh for the court case, watched by her sister who is now Chloe’s guardian. As she’s given a suspended sentence Ava’s elation turns to terror as she’s swept up outside the court room by military officers with guns. Lennox and Heather have been in a makeshift compound that’s now become the biggest American military base on British soil, named New Broom it sits at one end of Ullapool’s sea loch in the middle of nowhere, like Guantanamo Bay rebuilt in a beautiful Highland setting. Heather and Lennox are detained, seemingly with no legal basis, as MI7 Agent Oscar and the American military attempt to capture partial enceladons and understand the way they work. Oscar at least has an academic interest, whereas the military seem more fixated on how to exploit their alien powers to overpower and control the Earth. Nothing could be further from the alien’s minds, they are simply looking for somewhere to live now that their oceanic home has become colonised by another species. They are refugees.

I think the political climate and local circumstances had me reading the book on two levels: as a great science fiction story, but also as an allegory. For those who don’t know my closest city is Lincoln and we’re currently experiencing community divisions. The government’s decision to requisition the recently closed RAF base of Scampton, home of the Dam-Busters, and turn it into a centre for asylum seekers has met with uproar. It’s terrifying to hear the opinions of people who drink in the same pub, deliver the mail or wash the windows, in case it’s far removed from your own. There were sensible arguments against the plan: there was already a plan to turn the base into a museum and heritage centre, for which local people had fundraised hard; the government are not using the actual existing barrack blocks to house the men, but putting portacabins on the runway instead; it’s so far away from any services in the city. Yet, instead of being able to protest these points at a local level, a far right extremist group from Yorkshire has hijacked the cause and set up a protest camp at the base’s main gate with racist signage and ideology. They are protesting against any asylum seekers: ‘coming in illegally for the benefits; to commit crime; to be terrorists; to groom children; to take social housing’. They don’t even understand that in order to claim asylum someone must first arrive in their chosen country. Maybe because this is now part of my everyday life, the parallels between the enceladons and asylum seekers/ refugees were undeniable. Both have been forced from their own country for whatever reason and the majority seek to live somewhere peacefully and in harmony with the existing population, not realising that to some people, their very arrival itself is a threat.

New Broom’s research staff are carrying out experiments that wouldn’t have been out of place in concentration camps. They are building Faraday Cages to capture partial enceladons and prevent them communing with others through telepathy. This silence is enough to depress and eventually kill them, because they can’t live separately only as part of the whole. Lennox and Heather miss the sense of communion they get from their telepathic communication with Sandy. They can commune with each other though and do so whenever they can. Heavily guarded wherever they go, they have no idea that Ava and Chloe are on their way, or that a camp of ‘Outwithers’ has built up on the edge of the loch filled with travellers, believers, anti-government protestors and anyone who despises the idea of such a huge military base on Scottish soil or the capture and torture of enceladons. There’s only one American soldier who shows a trace of empathy, the others are simply unquestioning drones taught to believe they are acting in the interests of National Security and the defence of the Western way of life. The two main men in charge are clearly in the grip of obsession, whether it’s a selfish intellectual curiosity or the terrifying birth of a megalomaniac. While I felt Oscar could perhaps be redeemed, General Carson is itching to exert authority over both security and experimentation. The only character who has their freedom is Sandy, but how can they be truly free with their family being captured bit by bit and their peace threatened by a man determined to destroy them all. Make no mistake, this is not the soft humorous story we might have expected from the first novel. In parts it was hard to read and made me feel physically sick, especially when Ava is finally reunited with her friends at New Broom. As Carson separates Ava from her daughter and proceeds to torture Chloe I felt so angry I was tearful. It is horrific and has the reader rooting for the overthrow of the Americans, by whatever means necessary.

It’s the feelings that Doug Johnstone’s writing conjures in the reader, that make this such an immersive read. The moments of love, friendship and sacrifice between these characters are beautiful and are but a small part of the collaborative existence the enceladons share. The moments where Sandy takes a human into the ‘whole’ are euphoric and more than a little trippy! The way the enceladons harness and work with nature to fight back against the military base has a similar feeling. The way Heather decides to stop resisting the cancer invading her body and just enjoy the life she has left living within the collective. All of these are pointing to the same life philosophy. We must work with something, not against it. The enceladons want to exist alongside humans, to become friends and communicate with them. After years of Thatcherism and the message that autonomy is the route to success and freedom, working together actually is an alien concept. It isn’t just the communication between the three friends that proves to be powerful. It’s the mother – daughter bond between Ava and Chloe. It’s the ‘Outwithers’ who have come together to create their protest camp and two women; Jodie, a lifelong activist for connection and Vonnie, whose love connection with Lennox creates it’s own power. Communication with the Outwithers is what changes Oscar, although whether this actually redeems his character overall I don’t know. These are the people who understand that connection with the colony can strengthen society as a whole, rather than destroy it. There are also those who choose not to see, whether that’s by building a fence and only caring about what’s in your own backyard, or by choosing to believe the government and mainstream media narrative, which only exists to manipulate. It reinforced my belief that language is so incredibly important. If we choose the word integration instead of infiltration, opportunity rather than threat, to embrace something changing for the better rather than hankering after a nostalgic past that mustn’t be destroyed, if it ever existed. If we realise that connection is more important than individual attainment we learn to grow, adapt and embrace new things. It’s amazing that E.M. Forster’s quote ‘only connect’, although now it’s over a 100 years old, still has such huge resonance.

Published on 14th March by Orenda Books.

Meet the Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Great Silence, the third in the Skelfs series, which has been optioned for TV. In 2021,The Big Chill, the second in the series, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. In 2020, A Dark Matter, the first in the series, was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the Capital Crime Amazon Publishing Independent Voice Book of the Year award. Black Hearts (Book four), will be published in 2022. Several of his books have been best sellers and award winners, and his work has been praised by the likes of Val McDermid, Irvine Welsh and Ian Rankin. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions, and has been an arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.

Netgalley

The Guest by B.A. Paris

Posted on 1st Mar 202428th Feb 2024 by thelotusreaders

I was so glued to this story about a group of friends and the entanglements between them that I read it in one sitting. The action focuses on two couples: Iris and Gabriel who live in a village with their daughter Beth who is currently enjoying a gap year at a dog rescue centre in Greece. Their friends are Laure and Pierre, who reside in Paris. The couples met on holiday, while Laure and Pierre were on honeymoon and Gabriel and Iris had only been married a year. They became firm friends, seeing each other every year and Laure even became their daughter Beth’s godmother. However, this visit is different. Laure has turned up alone, saying Pierre has confessed to having a daughter with a woman he spent the night with at the start of their marriage. Laure needs space to think and so does Pierre, could she stay with them for a short time? Of course the answer is yes, but it’s not an easy time. Gabriel is taking a long period of leave from his job as a GP, because he has struggled mentally after finding a teenage boy who fell into the nearby quarry. He did all he could for Charlie, but sadly he died before the ambulance arrived. Those last moments with the dying boy have weighed heavy on Gabriel, especially his final words. He has decided to use his time off restoring the walled garden that has grown wild over the years. Friends from their village, Esme and Hugh, offer their gardener and handyman Joseph to give Gabriel a hand with the more back breaking jobs. As these people collide over the summer, guests will outstay their welcome, relationships become strained, and huge secrets are on the verge of being disclosed as obsession and jealousy boil over.

Our story is mainly told by Iris, who throws herself into looking after their new guest in a lull she has between interior design jobs (although she calls herself an ‘enhancer’). Laure is petite and chic, sometimes making Iris feel ungainly by comparison. The irritations are small at first – for some reason Laure hasn’t brought many clothes with her, but when she borrows from Iris’s wardrobe she always seems to pick the very thing Iris was planning to wear and it looks better on their guest. Then after a couple of weeks Laure rearranges their kitchen, meaning everyone is opening the wrong drawers and cupboards and any job takes twice as long. Iris asks her to put it back, but Laure meant no offence, she just thought it made more sense the new way. There are no signs of her seeing Pierre either. In fact no sign of him at all. Gabriel had extended an offer of help, could he perhaps go over to Paris and give him a listening ear? There’s no reply. It’s uncharacteristic of him. When Laure finally goes to Paris for talks, she’s back by evening of the same day saying that he didn’t turn up at the flat. As the summer moves along, the constant presence of another person starts to chafe at Iris’s goodwill. There are only so many times she can listen to the same story, or pull apart their relationship in every detail. Gabriel is also struggling but at least he has his garden escape, but he’s under pressure to speak to the mother of Charlie. He had passed Charlie’s last words to paramedics at the scene, but actually meeting his mother would be difficult. In some ways it might bring closure, but unfortunately Gabriel has kept something to himself. To save his mother more grief he told them Charlie sent his love to her, but that isn’t what Charlie said at all.

The author has a brilliant way of creating our interest in these characters, even though I wasn’t particularly rooting for any one of them – although I did have enormous sympathy for Iris because Laure felt like an emotional vampire and I’m rubbish with houseguests too. However, I was addicted to finding out what would happen to them next. Which of the various secrets they were keeping from each other would actually be exposed? Joseph is very intriguing and seemingly very tempting for the women who meet him. He feels like a drifter, living in Hugo and Esme’s converted outhouse and picking up gardening jobs here and there. He’s rootless and very tight lipped about his life before arriving in the village, could he have something to hide? Iris certainly thinks so and wonders if there is a secret liaison going on, perhaps with Esme or even Laure as the summer lingers on with no sign of Pierre. As the tension grows and unease develops, you won’t want to stop reading. Even as events implode this small group of friends and you think you have all the answers, you don’t. This is a brilliant thriller, really cementing the author as a definite ‘must buy’ for me.

Published 20th February 2023 by Hodder and Stoughton.

Meet the Author

B.A. Paris is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of seven novels including the word-of-mouth hit, Behind Closed Doors, and her latest thriller, The Guest.

Over 7 million editions of her work have been sold worldwide and her books have been translated into 41 languages. Three of her novels have been optioned for major screen adaptations with films of Behind Closed Doors, The Breakdown and The Therapist in development.

Before becoming an author, B.A. Paris, who spent most of her adult life living in France, worked in finance as a trader before retraining as an English teacher. She and her husband then ran a language school together whilst bringing up their five daughters. Today, she writes from her cottage in Hampshire, England.

Follow B.A. on Twitter and Instagram at @baparisauthor. You can also find her on Facebook, Goodreads, and BookBub. Sign up to her newsletter for teasers, giveaways and updates.

Throwback Thursday

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane

Posted on 29th Feb 202429th Feb 2024 by thelotusreaders

Booksellers often joke about customers who come into their shop and ask for help finding a book: they either don’t have the title but vaguely remember the author; they don’t know the author but know there was a bird on it or the book was blue; they saw the book on that programme, the one with Sara Cox but don’t know which episode or even the series it was from; it’s an old book, they read it at school; they think it was set in China, or maybe South America. On it goes and more often than not, once the mystery is solved, they ask the bookseller to write it all down on a slip of paper then go home and order it from Amazon. I was having that sort of experience with this unusual novel, in fact nobody I asked had ever heard of it. Possibly not helped by my description – ‘ it had an old lady in it and a tiger came to visit her at night.’ Inevitably most people heard ‘tiger’ in the story or on the cover and I’d be answered with Life of Pi or The Tiger Who Came To Tea, excellent books but not the one I was looking for. Then finally one day the title sort of came to me. I say sort of, because I kept calling it The Night Visitor which sounds like a creepy name for incontinence or night sweats! I’d taken the book out from the library originally and when funds allowed I wanted to have a copy on my shelves. It is there on Amazon, but maybe pop it on your charity shop list because it is a little gem.

The book tells the story of Ruth, an elderly lady who lives alone in a remote house on the coast of Australia. She has family but her son has relocated for work, meaning that day to day help isn’t something he can provide. Her sonphones regularly, but he’s busy with work, kids and a home of his own. However, he does start to worry when she rings to tell them she’s had a night guest; a large tiger came to visit in the night. At first she woke up scared there might be an intruder, but it was a handsome tiger instead. Her son suggests that perhaps she was dreaming? Ruth is adamant, the tiger woke her and she wasn’t asleep. Her son and his wife confer and decide they’re worried. What if their mother’s mind is going? How will they manage to get her the help she needs? Their mother can be low in mood at times, mainly because she’s spending so much time alone and that leads to ruminating on the past such as her girlhood in Fiji. One of my favourite tropes is the unreliable narrator and that’s what we have in Ruth. Her story is so implausible she must be losing her marbles. What unfolds is an unusual psychological thriller with a side order of magic realism, which I love. morning after the tiger visits a woman knocks on Ruth’s door. She introduces herself as Frieda and claims to have been sent by the government to help Ruth clean the house and stay on top of things. She’s also from Fiji, so Ruth can talk to her about the past and those memories and regrets that occupy her mind. It would seem that Frieda awakens something in Ruth that’s lain dormant till now. Her memories of Fiji become even more intense and flourish under Friedan’s gaze. In the back of my mind I was a little suspicious that much like the tiger, Frieda might not be everything she seems. Alternatively, she might be everything she seems and more. Ruth is more vulnerable than she cares to admit, a woman whose memory and understanding of events may not be accurate. Her mind wanders, but is she knowingly lapsing into daydreams or does she believe the fantasy? I felt concerned that while Ruth was narrating the more fantastical aspects of her daily life, like her visiting tiger, underneath there might be something more dangerous going on. Elderly people who have altered consciousness are so vulnerable to manipulation and abuse, whether it be sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual or financial. As changes were revealed, baby step by baby step, they were going unnoticed by Ruth. I was desperate for her to sit up and realise something odd was going on, before the results became permanent.

There are things in life that we choose not to see. We erect a wall to shield ourselves and never look over it so we can say ‘I didn’t know…’ This is often the case when someone we love is in deteriorating health, especially if they’re our parents who used to look after and support us. I think this is what Ruth’s son is doing, closing his eyes to the fact that their situations have reversed and now mum needs him. Ruth’s vulnerability is sad, because she’s so open to exploitation. It’s not just that her mind might be affected cognitively, but that she’s so lonely she craves someone to be interested in her. If someone enjoys spending time with her, they could quickly form a bond and shut everyone else out. As Frieda starts to infiltrate all parts of Ruth’s life, taking on more and more responsibility for her affairs, Ruth’s determination and independent spirit become worn down and she starts to depend on Frieda. In contrast with Frieda, Ruth does come across as mentally frail. Whereas the carer is the life and soul of the party. Ruth’s worsening nightmares of being stalked in her own home by a striped predator could be pure imagination, allegorical, magical or a manifestation of a sixth sense telling Ruth she’s in danger. This is a brilliantly complex debut, with layers of manipulation and deception that extend to the reader. All the way through I kept thinking I didn’t want my life to end up like this. Despite this, I was compelled to keep reading and I’ve never forgotten it. Now, thankfully, I have my own copy so I can re-read whenever I like.

Squad Pod Collective

The Murder After The Night Before by Katy Brent

Posted on 28th Feb 202428th Feb 2024 by thelotusreaders

Something bad happened last night. My best friend Posey is dead. The police think it was a tragic accident. I know she was murdered.

I’ve woken up with the hangover from hell, a stranger in my bed, and I’ve gone viral for the worst reasons.

There’s only one thing stopping me from dying of shame. I need to find a killer.

But after last night, I can’t remember a thing…

This was a delicious pick me up for a winter weekend with unexpected depth! It was the perfect mix of witty fun, but also an interesting thriller that captures the moment with some serious social commentary. When Molly wakes up after the Sparkle magazine Christmas party she’s expecting a hangover of epic proportions. What she isn’t expecting is to wake up next to a complete stranger with no memory of the night before. She has a strange combination of complete amnesia, but underneath that a feeling of unease that won’t go away. He tries to reassure her that all he wanted to do was make sure she got home safely, considering the amount that she drank. Yet, his account of the night before doesn’t make any sense to her either and she starts to question everything. Things only get worse when she staggers into work to hear the worst news she could ever hear. Firstly, there’s a sexually explicit video of her at the party going viral on social media. Worse than that she finds out her best friend and flatmate Posey is dead after an awful accident. The version the authorities give Molly just doesn’t ring true though and she suspects her friend may have been murdered. So Molly starts her own investigation, hoping to unearth the truth of what happened that night but also who would want Posey dead and why?

Molly is such a sparky, likeable character and she brings a lightness to this dark story, just enough to keep a good balance. I warmed to her as it becomes clear how much she cared about her friend and the lengths she’s willing to go to for justice on her behalf. She’s a little clumsy in her investigation skills and has flaws, but that makes her more endearing. She’s far from perfect at first, drinking a lot and dealing with loss, struggling to focus and not remotely motivated by her job on a teen magazine. Molly allows the author to tackle some heavy themes within the novel, it’s her personality that makes these difficult subjects accessible to the reader. This is also brilliant because it accesses readers who might not ordinarily pick up a more ‘serious’ novel on these themes. It’s a fine line to tread, remaining serious about a subject while writing an entertaining and engaging story, but the author has pulled it off here.

The author shows incredible skill by weaving some pertinent social commentary into the plot, about the dangers of social media and misogyny, both online and in real life. Since the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met Police officer, the rise of the Incel movement online and influencers like Andrew Tate, the depths of the misogyny in our culture have come to light. I’ve never been more aware of the divides in our society when it comes to race, disability and sexism. The recent and very public ableism and misogyny towards comedian Rosie Jones has been staggering and as a disabled woman I was affected by reading it, goodness only knows how Rosie had felt as their target. I expected the ableism, but felt it was tinged with sexism too because the comedian Lost Voice Guy, who has the same disability as Rosie, doesn’t face this relentless wave of hate. The Wild West that is Twitter has given a toxic platform to men who enjoy gaslighting women and putting them down in the most insulting ways possible. I love that Katy Brent has tackled this misogyny within her story line, from the toxic culture of social media through to the terrible experience of sexual assault. The embarrassing viral video of Molly giving a blow job in the street gets a torrent of disgusting, but very authentic comments from trolls and keyboard warriors, not all of them men. It was just like reading Twitter. None of them were levelled at the man, all the negativity is focused on Molly, effectively bullying and slut-shaming her. It really highlights how there are still different societal standards of sexual behaviour for men and women, but now proliferating on social media.

I really enjoyed Molly’s character growth, at the beginning she’s all over the place, but her love for Posey really makes her focus and get results. Molly realises that Posey was working on an investigation that might have been the cause of her murder. So she has to follow the clues her friend has found, working out answers to the questions she had, all in the hope it will bring her closer to finding her killer. Of course that puts Molly in the same danger, but she wants to find the truth for her friend and shows real loyalty and courage. Molly’s flaws and her self- awareness about them, just make her all the more endearing. There’s some snappy dialogue that keeps the story moving, but also introduces an element of wit and humour. Yes, there are moments here that are truly funny, but the balance between the humour and the darker aspects is maintained throughout. The emotional depth of the characters and particularly Molly’s feelings for her friend really did elevate this above the average thriller, but as the truth starts to unfold, there are twists and turns that leave you wondering if we ever know anyone as well as we think we do.

Published in paperback on 1st February 2023 from HQ

Meet the Author

Katy is an author and award-winning journalist from the UK. She has worked on newspapers, magazines and websites since 2005, writing about popular culture. How To Kill Men and Get Away With It was her first novel and The Murder After the Night Before is her second.

Netgalley

What We Did in the Storm by Tina Baker.

Posted on 20th Feb 202419th Feb 2024 by thelotusreaders

This is my first Tina Baker novel, although I’ve been aware of her others she’s been a new author I hadn’t managed to get on my TBR. Now I feel very stupid and sorry that I haven’t picked up one of her earlier thrillers because I enjoyed this one very much indeed. Tresco is a small island in the Scilly Isles that’s run almost like a club for the wealthy. Owned by ‘the family’ it’s main currency is tourism but often the same families own timeshares or block book the cottages, each named after a seabird, for the same times each year. Those that live there all year round are ‘the workers’ who look after the abbey gardens, work in the pub or the shop, or work directly as gamekeeper or groundsmen for the family estate. This creates a community where everyone knows everyone else, and each is very aware of their status in relation to each other. So when Kit, son of the very wealthy and regular cottage dweller Beatrice Wallace, starts a flirtation with Hannah the barmaid from The Old Ship tongues start wagging. There are many rumours about Hannah: that she’s been dallying with fellow worker Sam who is married with three boys; that she is easy with her favours, especially on poker nights with the boys; that she was spotted dancing naked by the full moon; that she’s possibly a witch. None of that bothers Kit, but as the young lovers become more than a quick fling it bothers other people. Kit’s mother is raging at her son’s choice of girlfriend, knowing the grief of a relationship with someone from a different class to you. She tries to push him towards her goddaughter Charlotte, who might be stupid enough to wear heels and off the shoulder tops on the island, but is at least in the same circles as the Wallace’s. Sam’s wife Christie should be ecstatic, but for some reason she isn’t, still fuming at Hannah any time she comes within an inch of her husband knowing that she has some sort of hold on him. Alison, Hannah’s boss, just wishes that Hannah would stop sleeping with the customers and causing drama in the pub. As a storm approaches and tensions are at their height, two women are attacked at a remote point on the island, but one woman is lost to the sea. But who?

The author uses different narrators throughout the story, which is difficult at first until you get to know each character and their place on Tresco. Interspersed with these voices is a separate narrative entitled ‘After the Storm’ that recounts the events of that day and what the speaker has seen. We don’t know who they are, but they seem to have been in the right place at the right time to have some of the answers, but not all. The rest of the narrative occurs in the lead up to the storm and we get to know all the residents, visitors and workers. Hannah and Kit aren’t the only ones potentially causing problems for the community. There’s John and Mary-Jane from Georgia in the USA, evangelical Christians who seem to have eyes only for each other. Why did they leave their hometown and families and what shameful secret does Mary-Jane impart to the island’s nurse? Thor works in the village shop, where a bottle of wine can cost as much as some of the worker’s weekly salary, but has a rather active internet life that would raise eyebrows. There’s quiet Maisie who cares for her mother’s needs 24/7 and seems devoted, but lays awake at night listening to her sleep apnoea machine helping her breath, just wishing she’d stop. There’s also a strange man who appears at bathroom windows wearing a balaclava and spying on unsuspecting ladies. Even Christie and Sam’s relationship isn’t what it seems, the long suffering wife whose husband drinks more than he should, neglects his family and strays when he can is the accepted narrative, but never assume that what you see is the truth. Beatrice is a horror though, although islanders are sympathetic when she loses her husband, she isn’t perhaps grieving as much as they would assume. She loves her son, but wants him to commit to something more than painting, sailing and cavorting with that barmaid in whichever cottage is free. None of these activities will make a living and although the family have money and he won’t be destitute she still wishes he had some direction.

I loved the way the author created these rigid boundaries between the different groups on the island and how it disrupts everything if they are broken. After the storm, Kit spends more time on the island painting and renting whatever cottage is free. He offers help where needed, even if it’s a shift in the pub or running errands for holiday makers. Yet he’s stuck in limbo. The workers don’t accept him, in fact they wish he’d bugger off and let someone who needs the money have a job. However, they do have to be careful because his mother is a rich timeshare owner and as such must be treated as a guest. As for him and Hannah, a quick bunk-up is overlooked but why did they have to fall in love? There are clever little faux pas that show someone up as an outsider, such as the plague of pink waterproof coats that islanders wouldn’t be seen dead in. Having come from a small village, I enjoyed the way gossip spread, usually via the pub, as one person tells someone else in confidence, then that person tells someone else in confidence, until it’s a chain of Chinese whispers with the truth lost somewhere in the telling. I also loved the incredible sense of place Tina has created, the crashing waves, exotic flora and incredible seabirds are romantic and enthralling to visitors, but islanders know this isn’t some sort of nature’s Disneyland. The wild weather and stormy seas can be lethal and only the workers know the endless maintenance it takes to keep the island to counteract the damage caused by the sea fret. They are stuck in a parasitic relationship, where they can’t do without the tourism but hate it at the same time. There are so many revelations and twists here I made sure I set aside enough time to finish it in one go and I’m glad I did. Right up until the end I was fairly sure what happened during the storm, but how wrong I was! I’m now going back to Tina’s other novels because I think I’ve just become a fan.

Published on 15th February from Viper.

Meet the Author

Tina Baker, the daughter of a window cleaner and fairground traveller, worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years and is probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV. After so many hours watching soaps gave her a widescreen bum, she got off it and won Celebrity Fit Club. She now avoids writing-induced DVT by working as a Fitness Instructor.

Call Me Mummy is Tina’s first novel, inspired by her own unsuccessful attempts to become a mother. Despite the grief of that, she’s not stolen a child – so far. But she does rescue cats, whether they want to be rescued or not.