Trauma – The Lotus Readers

The Sisters of Hope Square by Faith Hogan

Posted on 21st Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

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!

Instagram @faithhoganauthor

Personal Purchase

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Posted on 18th Jun 202616th Jun 2026 by thelotusreaders

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.
Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

In our prologue we find Birdie in the pharmacy of a small town in the southern states of America buying ‘Merry Widows’ condoms by the dozens. I then became so engrossed in the story of this fascinating woman and the relationship she makes with a girl called Meg at the orphanage that I forgot all about the question that came to mind; why she would be buying so many? Thankfully all questions are answered in this incredible book that’s moving, infuriating, saddening and hilarious all at once. The plot takes us on a journey as Birdie travels to visit her newly married sister Frances who is living with her in-laws at their house Idlewilde. Frances is at great pains to point out her new family, the Tartts, are well to do and Birdie must try not to show her up. In truth, Birdie can only ever be her glorious self and Mrs Tartt is too much of a Southern lady to show anything but politeness to a guest. Frances’s husband, Rory Tartt, is a good looking man, but to Birdie he seems to have something on his mind. He’s eager to leave in the morning and eager to be in his office in the evenings, even retiring to his own bedroom at the end of the day and not his wife’s. Frances confides in Birdie that there’s been very little in the bedroom department and Birdie starts to worry. One thing she knows is money and if she didn’t know better she’d be concerned about Rory’s business and where he’s going. When asked to book-keep for the local orphanage Frances again gives her a note of warning. The president of the orphanage board, Mrs Garnett, is very influential and is hoping to be the governor of the Anti-Vice Committee. Birdie is unimpressed with this paragon of virtue and lets Frances do the sucking up, instead she puts her energy into the disgusting room she’s working in alongside one of the orphans, Meg. As far as Birdie can see, Meg is in this room by herself every day away from the other girls. She has nothing to read. The walls are mouldy and she’s not allowed to open the window. She’d think it was a punishment, but Meg doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong. With an attentive adult to clean and paint the room, let the air in and ask her interesting questions Meg starts to blossom, much to Mrs Garnett’s consternation. Birdie can find solutions to most problems and is enjoying her time with Meg, but the Tartt’s troubles loom and Birdie will have to come up with a creative way to help. When she meets Charlie, a woman broken down by the system and longing to get her child back, they make a formidable team.

I absolutely loved Birdie, the sensible person between an anxious mother who thinks the price of canned peaches will put the family over the edge and a sister who is willing to spend every penny they have if it makes her pretty. She is pragmatic, knowing she’s not a beauty she decided she would have to look after herself and got a job bookkeeping at the local store. Frances didn’t even invite her family to her wedding, scared of being found out as poor. Birdie doesn’t believe in trying to be what you’re not and she’s utterly herself which I loved. She’s sensible but also has a loathing of injustice. She has her own moral compass that is based on the Bible, common sense and kindness. She doesn’t believe in people that set themselves up as good in a performative way, just be good because it’s the right thing to do. Meg was fascinating and her story is so deeply sad. She believes her mother left her one Christmas Eve and never came back, so she had to survive on what was in the house until the local doctor found her. She’s absolutely starving for books and learning, even sneaking a Life magazine she finds in the cupboard and gorging on it like a cream cake. She has to some extent accepted her treatment at the orphanage, never expecting to be chosen as one of the eldest there. I found myself hoping Birdie might adopt her, they certainly have an instant affinity. I loved Meg’s sense of humour too, especially when she relates an adoption letter received that states:

“We need us an older girl, on account of I was chopping cotton and it was hot out and the blade swung out my hand and sliced my wife’s arm clean off so we had a proper funeral for it but she cannot lift a pot now.”

As Meg observes, they had a funeral for an arm? That’s quite a letter. It has people, action and weather, with a bit of gore for interest. She’s a girl with so much to say and no outlet at all. It’s a whole lot different than life with her mum who was a feminist and clearly loves her daughter. She celebrated when Meg was placed in the ‘exceptional learners’ and tells her to remember that most men are placed in the slow learners category. Where could this woman have gone?

The themes in this are very much like The Help, injustice, inequality, the strength of women and what we’ll do to survive. In addition there’s the rise of the eugenics movement in America, something I researched at university and when preparing for my PhD. Eugenics supposes there is a master race, that white able-bodied heterosexuals with European origins are superior. This is such an important topic when we see what’s going on in the US today and when The Sanctuary exists in London – a destination that stays out of the press, but launched the Restore party, houses a eugenics magazine and race scientists. People forget that Germany didn’t start this lean towards wanting a superior race. Birdie finds out that Mrs Garnett’s policies for the Anti-Vice group include eugenic thinking such as imbeciles will give birth to more imbeciles, some ethnic groups should be prevented from having more children and that others should be forced onto contraception from a very young age, especially girls from poor, black families. It’s an evil that’s never really gone away, especially in America where some of these measures were still happening in the 1970s. These policies made it easy to get inconvenient people out of the way, just like Meg’s mum whose story brought me to tears. Birdie starts to realise that doing something considered immoral by society might be the best way to survive and she has to weigh it up in her own mind.

There was just so much I want to say about this book and I’ve had to stop myself rambling! Kathryn Stockett has done it again. I can see this on the big screen and it will be brilliant. It also has the added bonus of chatter about merkins at the breakfast table, which made me laugh out loud. I fell in love with Meg and Birdie, but also the women who form a team to get Birdie’s in-laws out of the mess they’re in. This book has so much to say about female strength, friendship and adaptability in terrible circumstances. Every character is so well drawn I could see them. I know a lot about eugenics and its history in the US and this is an important book right now, going against where Christian Nationalist policy is taking the country. It shows the damage that can be done when someone lives the rigid rules of manmade religion rather than the actual message of love given in the Bible. Often those who want the appearance of goodness most, will do anything to keep it. Birdie finds that friendship and loyalty can be found in the most unusual circumstances and with people you never expected. There’s tragedy and brutality but also lightness, humour and so much love. Utterly brilliant!

Out now from Penguin Books

Meet the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. The Calamity Club is her second novel.

Personal Purchase

The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary

Posted on 15th May 202613th May 2026 by thelotusreaders

Every place has its ghosts.

Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since.

Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive.

Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present.

But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…

Detective Laurie Bower has a new job on a very different patch from inner city Manchester. They have returned to her husband Adam’s family home at Edenscar in the Peak District, to live with his father who has been diagnosed with advanced dementia. This is a wild place and a community where every family has been hit in some way by a tragic accident from 17 years ago. Everyone including Laurie’s new DS Joseph Ashe. Joseph was the only survivor of a terrible minibus crash that plunged his primary school class, their teacher and the driver to the bottom of Lady Bower reservoir. The village is haunted by the loss of those children and so is Joseph Ashe, whose best friend Sammi is still always by his side, even though only Joe can see him. This is going to be a hard district for Laurie to get used to, not only will she be living in the family home, which means getting used to less privacy and the presence of different family members all the time, but she’s not used to the tiny roads, rough terrain and awful weather. She has to hit the ground running when they receive a call about a couple who haven’t been seen over the weekend. Joe has a terrible feeling, because he’d heard gunshots late on Friday night but put it down to poachers in the woods. He also saw car lights heading in the direction of Manchester. Joe and Laurie drive out to Chris and Odette Miles’s cottage on the edge of the woods, a place they’ve been renovating and now share with baby Eric who is almost a year old. As they enter it’s immediately obvious the couple have been dead all weekend, shot in their own kitchen. Laurie chooses to search upstairs to spare Joe from what she fears has happened, a fear that sadly comes true when she finds Eric drowned in only a few centimetres of bath water. Now they must work together, with Sammi alongside, to discover who Chris and Odette were behind the image of a happy family, and then to find their killer.

The atmosphere of this novel is amazing with an opening section that takes us into the minibus to experience that crash as the children did, bringing home just how terrifying it must have been.

“It hit the water hard. Went under, fast. Waves of broken glass from the front to the back […] water like thunder was filling the bus, roll after roll of it, black.”

It’s astounding that Joe survived, but he has been seen with suspicion ever since with whispers that he and Sammi were messing around on the back seat, distracting the driver. Sammi has never left his side since and appears as if he’s the same age as Joe. However, once the bereaved villagers thought Joe could see their lost children he has been something of an oddity. For some the ability to see their child with Joe can be a comfort, but for others it must be distressing and confronting. The moments when this happens lift the hairs on the back of the neck, one child’s ’little icy fingers’ were reminiscent of Cathy trying to get into the window at Wuthering Heights. They’re always visible as if conjured from under the water, dripping wet and wreathed in shattered glass, their eyes black as night. Laurie’s husband Adam is a therapist and he dismisses it as ‘emotional contagion’, a shared trauma that causes mass hallucination. However, they are usually for a set time period and then fade, but Joe’s powers never go away. The weather is also full of foreboding, with several seasons in one day and the woods near the Miles house not recommended after dark. Laurie’s home set up is also unsettling. She is bereaved, but doesn’t share with Joe that she has lost her sister to addiction. She’s also uneasy at her father-in-law’s house, because Pete’s dementia means he behaves differently, becoming agitated towards sunset in a behaviour known as sundowning. He sometimes doesn’t know Laurie, but then when he does recognise her he becomes threatening. This is a place that has secrets and Joe and Laurie need to uncover them if they are going to solve the murders.

Neither detective is in the best place for an investigation and Laurie realises one of the main differences in policing an area where you live. In Manchester she had anonymity from who she was investigating, but here everyone is connected and has an opinion. To hear Chris’s parents talk about the murdered couple they sound like an idyllic family, with his father very proud of his son’s skill as an electrician. In fact he’s been doing so well recently that he’s been able to send his parents on holiday abroad. Odette’s mother has a slightly different perspective, wondering whether the pressure of the renovations and a new baby were taking their toll on her daughter who seemed to be providing most of the child care. Neighbour Bobby, who is an incredible bit of comic relief with habits that could earn him an ASBO and his arse constantly hanging out of his trousers, is more forthcoming. He thinks Chris was up to something to bring in the sort of money he was making. He often heard the couple arguing even though their house is some distance away. Bobby himself has has trouble with developers wanting to buy his ramshackle house, that is currently devaluing the holiday let next door. The team go through several theories – could Chris have been distributing drugs, keeping stolen goods or weapons? This is going to take a deep dive into his business records and asking more searching questions of his resentful family.

I loved how the author has woven in the real-life concerns of a village in an area like Derbyshire within the Peak District. There’s the difficulty for young people who grow up there not being able to afford a decent home as second home owners and investors buy up the local cottages for their portfolio, some with unscrupulous business practices. Laurie feels herself an outsider in this space, the weapons are different for a start as the pair encounter a crossbow booby trap, animal traps and then shotguns in her first few days. Even the motives and suspects are different to those she encountered back in Manchester. She can also see the pressure Joe is under as a receptacle for the village’s resentment and grief. The horrors here are both manmade and supernatural. The pair peel back the layers of secrets and find a neglected kid practically living wild, a plan for hunting in the woods that could have come from the Epstein files and someone who likes to watch their fellow villagers. These twists and turns of the case are fascinating and kept me reading all day. The ghosts are both horrifying and desperately sad, with parents who long to see their child again but not in the way they appear with deep black pools for eyes and dripping with water. It culminates in a terrifying showdown from a totally unexpected direction. The survivor’s guilt is unbearable and I kept hoping that Laurie’s presence and this awful case might be a catalyst for change. Both her and Joe are outsiders in different ways and I could see that distance from the community being useful in terms of their policing but painfully lonely in private. This was a deeply atmospheric and devastating start to a series I can’t wait to dive back into.

Out now from Harvill Publishing

Meet the Author

Sarah Hilary is the critically-acclaimed author of nine novels. Her debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and a finalist for both the Silver Falchion and Macavity Awards in the US. No Other Darkness, the second in her DI Marnie Rome series, was shortlisted for a Barry Award.

In April 2026, The Drowning Place will introduce readers to DS Joseph Ashe at the start of a brand new series set in the Peak District.

Sarah is Programme Director for St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Weekend, and co-founder of Ledburied, a crime fiction festival in her home town. Her short stories have won the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize, the Cheshire Prize for Literature, and the SENSE Prize.

Netgalley

Love Lane by Patrick Gale

Posted on 15th May 202612th May 2026 by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

Out Now from Tinder Press

Meet the Author

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

Netgalley

The Secret Thread by Eve Chase

Posted on 28th Apr 202627th Apr 2026 by thelotusreaders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out May 28th from Michael Joseph

Meet the Author

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

Say hello @evepollychase on Instagram and Facebook

Netgalley

The Family Friend by Claire Douglas

Posted on 2nd Apr 2026 by thelotusreaders

This is a cleverly plotted thriller by the author, designed to grab your attention and keep the questions coming. Imogen has lived with her boyfriend Josh since they were teenagers. She doesn’t have a big family because of a terrible incident in her past, her father was convicted of killing her mother after a Halloween party. With her father in prison, Imogen is lucky to have older sister Alison who put her life on hold to come back and look after Imogen until she went to university. We meet Imogen at a crossroads after a difficult time at work, she’s on indefinite leave from her job as an investigative journalist after a story led her into danger. She’s shocked to receive a phone call from a solicitor who asks her to come into their offices the next day. It would seem that her mother’s old friend Dorothea has died. Imogen remembers Dorothea very fondly after she took them in when her mum left her dad after years of abuse. Dorothea was a rather unconventional woman, an artist who worked with women who’ve suffered domestic violence using art therapy. Imogen has very fond memories of Dorothea’s large Victorian villa, complete with its own wood and studio. Imogen felt safe there, but it is still a shock to learn that this beautiful villa now belongs to her. As Imogen tries to come to terms with this legacy, questions start to form about Dorothea’s intentions. Was her death an accident? Who is the secretive author writing a book about her? What is contained in the underground bunker found in the wood? Imogen thinks all of this has something to do with her past and her investigative brain starts working.

This author knows exactly how to grab a reader and keep you asking questions. She drip feeds the answers by taking us into Dorothea’s past and the reasons she worked with women affected by domestic violence. We go into her own marriage, her meeting with fellow survivors Annette and Rosemary and founding the charity that helped Imogen and her mum. I kept reading, waiting for the flashbacks to that night – the terrible night Imogen and Alison’s mum died. Although with her dad asking to see her from prison, maybe she will have to weigh up different versions of the truth. The author constantly drops little clues and hints such as the items hanging off one of Dorothy’s final sculptures hidden in the bunker. Imogen also finds a piece of expensive cloth torn and caught on a small opening created in the perimeter fence. Is someone watching Imogen or was Dorothea the target? There are also emotional clues in the present with a little red flag popping up around Josh, Imogen’s boyfriend. They’ve been together forever, so it seemed strange that she needed time away from him to process and explore her new home. He also seemed to assume some things, like wanting to take over Dorothea’s office without realising that Imogen is grieving and it’s a space very personal to Dorothea. I didn’t like the sulking and withdrawing when he didn’t get what he wanted. I wondered if the inheritance had made him feel insecure, after all it does belong to Imogen and not him.

The character I enjoyed most was Dorothea who casts a long shadow over the book, despite being dead. I felt like she becomes Imogen’s saviour again, in many different ways. She has been such a creative woman, something I always admire, but also formidable. Learning some of her history makes us realise why she’s so self-reliant. As for Imogen, she didn’t grab me in the same way and I had a really hard time imagining her as an investigative journalist. I had to wonder whether she was a very different character at work and if so, why does she change at home. If we factor in the trauma of observing domestic violence in the home, it could be that the dynamic has conditioned her to avoid conflict and appear subservient. I felt the longer she was in Dorothea’s house the stronger she became and I hoped she was up to making some very hard choices. Her relationship with her sister Alison is interesting, because she had left home before the home environment worsened. When their father was arrested for their mother’s death, Dorothea offered to have Imogen but Alison wanted to keep her close. Was this a sister’s guilt, a need to keep them together, or was there something in Dorothea that Alison didn’t trust? As a result Alison does have a mum’s vibe with Imogen and it’s interesting to see that relationship develop over the course of the book. It’s very hard for Imogen to accept that Alison has visited their father, who still protests his innocence. This could definitely put a wedge between them. What I missed most was the perspective of Imogen’s mum and I would have loved a flashback into how she felt.

I loved the feel of the house and it reminded me so much of a family friend’s house that we visited a lot as children. They had a horse and lots of other animals, so the house wasn’t spotless but they had art, books and so many beautiful things that I think it influenced my love of interiors and weird objects. It also gave me a yearning to learn and understand art and literature. This is what the summer at Dorothea’s does for Immy, it opens her up to ideas and ambitions she might not have had otherwise. I loved how the sisters come together to try and solve the puzzle of Dorothea’s art and how that closeness allows Imogen to confide in her sister about her concerns; how do we tell the difference between caring too much and control? There’s something about them becoming more open with each other that gives Imogen more strength and purpose. I did not expect to go where the author takes us at the end and I think it was a brilliant idea. Anyone in our lives can be controlling and we must trust our good when it tells us something isn’t right. This was a great thriller, full of unusual twists and clues, plus some red herrings. I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the past with Imogen’s story and particularly the strengthening of the sister’s relationship.

Out now from Penguin.

Meet the Author

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number one bestselling author of eight stand alone novels: The Sisters (2015), Local Girl Missing (2016), Last Seen Alive (2017), Do Not Disturb (2018), Then She Vanishes (2019) and Just Like The Other Girls (2020). Her seventh, The Couple At No 9 (2021) was an Amazon number one bestseller, a number three Sunday Times bestseller and most recently hit number one on Germany’s Der Spiegel paperback bestsellers chart. The Girls Who Disappeared was a Richard and Judy book club pick for Autumn 2022 and was an instant number one Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been published worldwide.

Monthly Wrap Up, Uncategorized

Best Reads March 2026

Posted on 1st Apr 202631st Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

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.

Here are a few of next months reads:

Squad Pod Collective

Unreliable Narrator by Araminta Hall

Posted on 20th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

YOUR SECRETS AREN’T SAFE.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

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.

Two narrators. One truth. And a secret worth killing for.

I was blown away by Araminta Hall’s last novel, because of how bold and timely it was. I wondered whether she could write something that would capture the world as it is now, crazier and more disturbing by the week. Well it turns out she can. Hope Jenkins takes a job with author Ambrose Glencourt as his personal assistant at his home, Shadowlands. Rosie, as he likes to be called, described the shadowlands as a place of imagination. However, its other meaning gave me a sense of foreboding – a thin place, the hinterland between life and the next, place filled with ghosts and spirits. It made me wonder, was this a place where the line between the real and the imaginary is blurred? The setting is the archetypal bohemian mansion, showing a lot of wear and tear, but still beautiful with idyllic grounds. The sort of place where books and art are piled everywhere, but the dishwasher is held closed with cord and a wooden spoon. Hope is stunned by her surroundings, it’s nothing like her mum’s flat and Rosie’s wife Delia is a fragile beauty who was a model for the artist Siegel when she was younger. Again though, little things stayed in the mind. The way that they call their staff by their Christian names in front of visitors, but Mrs A and B in private seemed odd. Delia seemed very keen to downplay her own artistic ambitions, always saying it’s just a hobby when she has her own studio and Hope can see she’s very talented. Then there’s a painting – in Rosie’s study, amongst the bookshelves he has a nude painting of a very young Delia with her legs wide open. It makes Hope uncomfortable and and she wondered whether that was why he kept it so public, or whether he liked to make other men desire his wife?

I felt like Hope was dazzled by the Glencourts and the relationship seemed unequal. Whereas staff seemed to stay in the garden and kitchen, Hope and another guest at the house eat and socialise with the couple. Tom is introduced as someone who Delia has worked with when teaching pottery at an outreach for addicts. He and Hope have afternoons to spend together when Rosie has finished working for the day and it’s clear there’s chemistry. Yet I wondered why had Rosie and Delia taken Tom in and what exactly is the nature of their relationship? Is he as taken in as Hope is by this bohemian utopia? Perhaps not, as he discloses more secrets about the couple and explains:

‘I’m not sure Rosie means everything he says, I think it’s more that he entertains himself by making people feel uncomfortable.”

Little unexpected touches and comments made me uneasy about Rosie and there’s a very uncomfortable dinner scene that made me feel sick and awkward. Rosie’s dinner guests became horribly familiar, men who think their sex and status gives them licence to manipulate and bully others. We can feel the pressure of that summer building as the heat rises and I was utterly absorbed by it.

Then we’re taken ten years later and Hope wants to make a statement to the police. We meet our narrator Nat, a young detective trying to get through her day and get home to her wife and kids on time. Nat is our narrator, coming into this ten year old world in our stead and trying to work out whether Hope is just a crank or a mad fan. However, there’s something about this Hope, a strange, sad lady and her journal, from a summer ten years before that catches her attention. This is an utterly different Hope, in fact she’s a woman transformed from that dreamy girl who fell in love with a lifestyle so far from her own. Now she’s working in a school office and doesn’t appear to be looking after herself. She returned home that summer in a state of delirium and shock and it looks like her life hasn’t recovered, although underneath the exterior there’s still a nurturing instinct and an ability to identify victims of abuse. She’s alerted by news of Ambrose Glencourt’s long awaited sequel to The Ruined Girl, his most famous and celebrated novel. Hope buys the first novel and as she reads she becomes more and more angry. This is Rosie’s version of that summer’s events written down for all the world to read and the character based on Hope is definitely the villain of the piece. He has taken the truth and twisted it. The only thing Hope has is her journal and as Nat reads Hope’s journal she does start to wonder whether there’s some truth in this? She’s experienced manipulation and abuse and something about this presses that trigger. She decides to visit Shadowlands for herself and meet the Glencourts, because even if Hope is mistaken about what ended her work with Rosie, something at Shadowlands feels wrong.

The structure is so complex, playing with stories and asking questions about how they’re told and who gets to tell them. Rosie made my flesh crawl a little, with the arrogant assumption that he can feast on anything to fuel his imagination and continue the important business of making literary art – there’s no downgrading his talent, unlike Delia’s. I really felt how much easier it is to work as a writer when you have money to support you and a mansion to live in. He discards all distractions, even those he’s created himself. I didn’t like his friends either and their little games, enjoying their ability to make someone much younger uncomfortable. Hope wants to be like him, to be able to “make language work that way as if it belonged to me”. What she didn’t realise back then was that there’s no one way to write, because each unique voice is just as valid. It just that certain voices are more likely to be heard because they follow the established narrative. Hopefully, we don’t have to sound like rich, middle aged white men any more. Hope has seen through the shiny exterior of Shadowlands and knows they’ll look down on Nat with her cheap suit and London accent. But could Rosie’s assumption of superiority be his downfall? This book sits perfectly alongside the #MeToo movement and the Epstein Files in that it’s a world operating on the assumption of silence. Hope isn’t silent any longer. Incredibly tense, twisty and timely, I was utterly under its spell from the first few pages. Ambrose Glencourt claims that in fiction “it’s much easier to blow a body apart than put it back together again.” For Hope’s sake I read this voraciously, full of rage and with everything crossed that Araminta Hall could do what Ambrose Glencourt couldn’t.

Out March 5th from MacMillan

Meet the Author

Araminta Hall has worked as a writer, journalist and teacher. Her first novel, Everything & Nothing, was published in 2011 and became a Richard & Judy read that year. Her second, Dot, was published in 2013.

She teaches creative writing at New Writing South in Brighton, where she lives with her husband and three children.

Araminta Hall’s novel Imperfect Women has been adapted for television by AppleTV starring Elizabeth Moss and Kerry Washington

Random Things Tours

Reaper by Vanda Symon

Posted on 18th Mar 202617th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

A killer is hunting Auckland’s homeless. No one cares. No one but Max. These are his people.

Max Grimes is homeless, living on the streets of Auckland – among the forgotten, the invisible. But now someone is hunting the homeless, killing them one by one. No one cares. Except Max.

Trying to put his shattered life back together, Max is pulled into a deadly game when a face from his past reappears, reopening wounds he thought were long buried.

As whispers of a Grim Reaper spread terror through the city, Max must race against time – not only to find the killer, but to outrun the ghosts chasing him.

Because if he fails, he’ll be next.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Max Grimes again, back on the streets of Auckland where he was once a detective and is now homeless, although has at least found shelter in a building under renovation. I was also utterly absorbed by this story, that goes to unexpected places as Max tries to find a killer, before the killer finds him. The plot is so well constructed, with a blend of the personal and professional aspects of Max’s life becoming dangerously interlinked as a killer stalks street sleepers in the city centre district. It immediately made me angry that someone would prey on such vulnerable people, but not a surprise in the current climate where the vulnerable seem to be easy prey for everyone to comment on and abuse. I’ve seen the rise of ableism over the last year or two, which has become toxic to any person with a disability, asylum seekers or anyone perceived to be problematic for society on social media. Working my whole life in mental health, I know the complexities that combine to leave someone where Max Grimes is. In his case a daughter addicted to crystal meth and a boyfriend who cut her throat while high on the same poison. Lives break down for a multitude of reasons, but usually loss and abuse of some sort has contributed to the mental health crises that I would deal with. Particularly long term users of the mental health team services and high up on my priorities is to keep someone in their home by helping maintain finances and hold on to their tenancy. Sadly, with all the will in the world, this does not work and people would become vulnerable, homeless and prey to anyone looking for people to manipulate and harm. So I found myself asking: is this killer simply preying on those who are vulnerable because they’re seen as easy targets or is this killer trying to make a point?

Despite having left his job behind a long time ago, Max is still a police officer at heart. He gets up early and walks a set ‘beat’ through the streets, checking on those he knows or believes to be struggling. It’s no surprise that he’s one step ahead of the police when it comes to adding these deaths up and asking questions, approaching fellow detective Meredith when he thinks something is ‘off’. Detectives don’t necessarily have a specific patch, they work cases not streets, so the deaths of a couple of homeless people in a cold snap wouldn’t even cross their desk. By the second death Max is sure something is wrong. What he finds most troubling is that it’s someone who mentions the killer as the Reaper who is next to die. As he walks his usual path the next day he makes a note of who talks about a serial killer and plans to keep an eye on them. Meredith gets her boss to agree to treat the third death as a crime scene and if there’s anything to suggest murder, then the previous two bodies will be examined. The questions are mounting up for both Meredith and Max. People who live on the streets are suspicious and vigilant, so how is the killer getting close to their victims? How is he circumventing that natural mistrust of others that he knows the victims would have had? In between his investigations, Max’s past creeps up on him quite literally in the library where he spends the morning in the warmth reading the news and using the internet. Shane McFarlane is the last person he wants to talk to, since his son killed Max’s daughter he’s avoided him at all costs. It makes Max feel vulnerable that he finds him so easily, maybe a wake up call that his own vigilance needs to be stepped up. He asks Max if he’ll work as a private investigator for him and find the man who supplied the meth to his son. Max certainly could do this and he feels empathy for McFarlane’s anger towards the dealer, but can he work alongside this man in exacting revenge?

I love how Vanda Symon writes her characters, because whether it’s Meredith or Max we’re straight into their inner lives and how they see the world they live in. She doesn’t do superfluous description of character or appearance, she simply lets them live their lives and think their thoughts and leaves everything else up to the reader. Even when it comes to the short chapters narrated by the Reaper she sticks to this inner world, so when the clues start to add up for Meredith and she realises something about him we’re as surprised as she is. It also adds another layer of grey to this world when we realise the reasons behind the Reaper’s eventual plan. The author also weaves in the politics of the city and this time by alluding to gentrification, historic abuse and the Mayor’s plans for removing the homeless from the centre of Auckland. At a press conference he talks about homeless people as if they are vermin, suggesting that the case gives them an opportunity to remove this group of people from harm, while also stopping them from harming the city. I loved Meredith’s urge to shut his mouth for him and how her experience of his wandering hands at a party ties into worldwide events such as the Epstein files, not mentioned by name but certainly in Meredith’s experiences and thoughts. She laments that women in public life are held to different standards to men and get the lion’s share of abuse with appalling misogyny the norm on social media. She refers to ‘Teflon’ men ‘and they had all been men. Narcissists and psychopaths who believed they were untouchable, above the law.’ She also laments the keyboard warriors in local papers making comments about putting the killer on the city payroll and congratulating him for moving these bums off the streets, dehumanising the victims completely. Her relationship with Max shows she doesn’t think like this, she respects him and his investigative skills. When he’s badly beaten she’s desperately concerned and when suspicion starts to fall in his direction she has some very hard choices to make. I wondered whether this might be the end of their friendship?

Vanda has written another brilliant thriller here, full of clever clues and reveals. However, her incredible empathy and compassion for a vulnerable section of society means the victims are not just sensationalism or a means of moving the plot forward. Max makes sure that we know about these victims and that their deaths are investigated with the same vigour as any other member of society. I felt like this case really is make or break for the trust between Max and Meredith and I hoped that even when the only choice was to bring Max in for questioning, they would find a way of working together to uncover the truth. By this point in the book I couldn’t put it down because I was so desperate for the evidence to be wrong and the tension was unbearable. This is not a black or white, right or wrong type of story either. The author brings out all the shades of grey in her characters, making sure we remember that human beings are complicated and when lives go off the rails there’s always a story behind it, whether it is a personal grief or loss, abuse or mental heath crisis. After all, whether a police officer, killer, or victim we all have a back story.

Out March 18th from Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Vanda Symon lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. As well as being a crime writer, she has a PhD in science communication and is a researcher at the Centre for Pacific Health at the University of Otago. Overkill was shortlisted for the 2019 CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger Award and she is a three-time finalist for the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for her critically acclaimed Sam Shephard series. Vanda produces and hosts ‘Write On’, a monthly radio show focusing on the world of books at Otago Access Radio. When she isn’t working or writing, Vanda can be found in the garden, or on the business end of a fencing foil.

Blogger Life

The Last Ten Books I Bought

Posted on 17th Mar 2026 by thelotusreaders

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.