Tag: Women’s Fiction

Posted in Netgalley

The House of Hidden Letters by Izzy Broom 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Be whisked away to Greece with this dual narrative novel set on the Greek Islands. Greek cottage. Price: One Euro. Skye doesn’t make impulsive decisions. But when she sees a derelict Greek cottage for sale by lottery, she enters with dreams of a fresh start. However, her heart sinks as she pushes open the tattered blue door weeks later. Can this wreck ever be her home? Then Skye finds a bundle of letters hidden in the fireplace, their faded pages drawing her in with a story of long-forgotten love, tragedy, and unbelievable bravery during WW2. But all the while, Skye’s own past is circling. No matter how far she goes, fate is never far behind…

I throughly enjoyed this novel that treads the difficult line between feeling escapist while looking back to harrowing events in the island’s history. The people who buy the one Euro houses bring an optimism and sense of renewal to the island. The current residents of the island are a joy, incredibly generous with the new arrivals and particularly Andreas who is the builder commissioned to renovate the houses. He is hospitable, showing Skye around her new home and chatting ideas, but he goes above and beyond when he realises she is staying in the empty house so brings her groceries and coffee. When some of the other residents arrive the place is full of camaraderie and new friendships. These are mainly women. Joy is an artist from Australia who clicks with Skye straightaway. There are three sisters, one of which is a builder determined to renovate in her own way much to Andreas’s disgust. As Skye wanders through her house alone, taking in the sea view from the attic room we get a sense of freedom and independence from her, possibly a feeling she hasn’t had for some time. All of this activity is exciting and hopeful, a light-heartedness that’s at odds with the reasons Skye left the UK and her new home’s sad history. Skye and Andreas find Nazi dog tags and a stash of letters in a half collapsed wall, so they know these are from the time of occupation, when Italian and German soldiers were present in the islands. It’s more troubling when remains are unearthed in the garden, some of which appear to be human. What has happened on this particular street? 

I found Katerina’s letters and the times we delve back into the island’s history so vivid and there were scenes so memorable, I don’t think I’ll forget them. It really engaged my emotions and I fell in love with Katerina when we first meet her as she’s climbing to reach her goats. Her relationship with the little three legged goat is so touching. It’s also the reason she meets Stefanos, as her goat climbs a little higher than she should considering her poor balance. Katerina tucks her skirt into her knickers and shows off her own climbing skills. It feels like love at first sight for these two, but war will get in the way of their courtship. This heroine is bold and brave and even though she faces some terrible events she never loses her determination or her love. This is a turn around for the girl who scorned her sister’s marriage and the constraints it placed on her.

“Love, such a stupid thing. She was eighteen, strong, healthy and free to roam between chores. A man would not let her behave in such a way.” 

I found the islander’s experiences at the hands of their occupiers harrowing. They take everything they can from the villager’s stores of food, requisition their animals and leave them starving slowly. Katerina can see her sister is becoming frail, but doesn’t realise what she’s enduring in order to secure the tiny amount of food they have. One particular soldier takes an interest in her and she knows he won’t take no for an answer, even though she is expecting to marry Stefanos if he comes home. As she symbolically tries on her mother’s wedding dress she feels the strength of the older generation with her. This is a strength she sees when encountering an elderly man on the beach who greets her warmly then simply walks away into the sea, unable to cope with what is happening on the island and knowing the young need to be priority when it comes to resources. It’s the young who have to fight, including Stefanos and her sister’s husband, but it’s easy to forget that occupied women are also fighting in their own way. That might be foraging for food, hiding supplies from the occupiers, or even collaborating to survive – something that women were often punished for by their community, but is understandable when there are children to feed and refusal only means they take what they want anyway. Katerina’s principles are steadfast, even when starving and pregnant, but they also lead to devastating consequences. I loved the author’s focus on women helping women, even across the barriers between them. 

Skye arrives in a timid state, but blossoms on the island. She has come through a period of grief after losing her father, but there’s something more in the way she reacts to men and in the joy she takes in making her own choices for her new home. She gains the confidence to tutor some of the children and her friendship with the bold and liberated Joy seems to be exactly what she needs. She also builds a good relationship with Andreas, they work well on the house together and he quickly learns her boundaries. If something has to be done his way because of safety or local regulations he stands his ground, but all other decisions belong to Skye. He literally gives her own power back to her by remaining respectful and passive with decision making. It’s a marker of how broken the mother daughter relationship is, that Skye’s mother turns up on the island with her husband. If I’d disappeared across the continent with no forwarding address my mum would know something was very wrong back home. The author illustrates so well how grief is life-altering, leaving us potentially vulnerable to those who seem to offer love and protection, but actually want to control. With a total break from her usual life and the new people she has around her, I hoped Skye would have enough strength to break from relationships that have become abusive. It emphasises ‘found family’ and shows that community is vitally important to our wellbeing. 

This was a fabulous read, a dual narrative storyline where both timelines held my interest and kept the pages turning. Of course Katerina’s experiences have more power because of the horrors they faced during occupation. I also particularly loved Katerina’s bond with Chrysi her little goat, a relationship that was so touching it brought me to tears. Skye is also fighting for her survival, to build a life that’s how she wants it and the freedom to make her own choices and mistakes. I loved the hint of romance that didn’t overpower or devalue the serious points being made about the strength of women and their supportive bonds with each other. The historical finds that are made really piqued my interest and it was fascinating to see Katerina’s story slowly uncovered and I have wondered since finishing what she might have done next. There is loss, domestic abuse and sexual violence which can be a tough read if you’ve been through it, but all are handled well and felt authentic. I felt Katerina’s despair when she realises she no longer ‘feared the enemy, not their guns and bombs. It was the sorrow that terrified her.’ Like Skye she realises that she must use this as a strength going forward. I was rooting for both women throughout, dealing with the oppression of men and finding their own path. 

Meet the Author

My career as an author really began when I won The Great British Write Off competition in 2014 with a short story called The Wedding Speech. It was the first time anyone in the publishing industry had looked at my writing, and their collective advice and guidance gave me the confidence to complete a proper novel. My Map Of You was the result.

I write escapist fiction because travel is in my soul. My books are about all facets of life and often feature a love story. Getting inside the hearts and minds of my characters continues to fascinate me, as does searching the globe for settings in which to set their stories. I have scaled mountains in Sri Lanka, watched fireworks over Lake Como, swam in crystal clear Croatian waters, made wishes in Prague, hunted for orange houses in Mallorca, fallen off chairs in French bistros and wept over the beauty of the stars in Zakynthos – and these experiences are just the tip of the iceberg.

Each of my novels comes with a promise: to take my readers on an adventure and leave them with hope in their hearts. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I love writing them.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Death or a Little Light Maiming Do Us Part by Kathy Lette 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One dead husband. Three grieving widows.

When she hears a man has been killed by a Great White shark, Gwen races to the beach only to find that all that remains of her husband is his swimming cap and a piece of torn, blood-stained wetsuit. Her grief is soon interrupted by Tish, screaming for information about the accident. When Gwen reassures her that it’s her husband, Jason Riley, who’s perished, Tish’s response is earth-shattering for them both: Jason was her husband too.

The women’s mutual animosity is not assuaged when they learn that Jason recently sent all his – make that their – money to a mysterious ‘business partner’ in Egypt called Skye. But when they fly to Cairo to confront her, they find another grieving widow whose life-savings have gone missing…

As this double-crossed threesome cross continents in their search for truth and retribution, they start to realise they’re embarking on a journey of self-discovery, renewal and friendship too.

I’ve read Kathy Lette before so I was expecting ballsy women, lots of wit, perhaps some raunchy behaviour and definitely laughter. I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve seen this described as a revenge caper and that is the perfect description. Gwen has a happy life with her children and second husband Jason, who’s a real hottie. He is a big blonde surfer type with a sprinkling of grey, but a body honed to perfection by Iron Man training. She sometimes wonders how they got together. She sees herself as a rather ordinary widow nearing her sixties, while he’s a lot younger and so fit. However, tragedy comes along when Jason is training. Gwen hears on the radio that there’s been a shark attack in the bay and she makes her way there immediately. When she arrives, she knows by the scrap of wetsuit on the sand that the lost man is Jason. She hardly has time to breathe before a leather clad ball of fury catapults herself into the situation. Tish is there because she thinks her husband is missing too, she’s married to a tall, blonde hunk called Jason. Surely they can’t both be married to the same man? 

Gwen wants to quietly go home and cope with the double shock of Jason’s death and the news that he’s a bigamist. Tish has the grip of a small terrier and has about a million questions that Gwen is incapable of answering. She’s totally gobsmacked by Tish’s biker girl style, they couldn’t be more different so why was he attracted to both of them? It seems that when Gwen thought he was working or training, he was with Tish and vice versa. They’ve been together a similar amount of time. They make a very uncomfortable trip to Jason’s lawyer, Tish is adamant there should be a will and she wants to see it. She invested a large amount of money in a business start-up he was working on. Gwen is keeping her cards close to her chest but she too has invested some of her widow’s inheritance in his endeavours. Where has it gone? They soon find out. His lawyer tells them that Jason signed a document that transfers their joint investment to a woman in Cairo. Tish wants to be on the next plane and wants Gwen to go with her. Can they find this woman, solve the mystery of her connection to Jason and retrieve their money? 

I found the novel intriguing and funny at first. Tish is an absolute ball of energy and her power as a character did overpower everyone else slightly. I wonder if Kathy based Tish on her most extrovert side. I felt a little bit like the momentum of the story was lost in long verbal exchanges between the two women that seemed more about the jokes than developing characters or their relationships. Some are admittedly very funny, but when they come thick and fast the humour sometimes misses the mark. It’s also difficult to change the tone and I think the novel could have done with some light and shade. However, it’s a madcap caper that takes on an escapist feel as we travel all over the world with the women and try to work out if Jason faked his own death and whether they’ll be able to retrieve their money. Cairo brings even bigger surprises, leading to Tanzania, the Maldives and throughout Europe. It’s an absurd plot, but it is fun and a great escape read. I read this in one afternoon and had some laugh out loud moments. There’s also some lovely female camaraderie as these women start to come together, overcoming their differences to bond and keep chasing their love rat husband. I really enjoyed the suggestion that there’s a re-evaluation of life as women reach middle-age. A realisation that if we are going to do the things we’ve always wanted we need to start planning now. It’s the chance to throw off things that no longer suit us – not just in our wardrobes! In amongst the action and the laughs is the very profound idea that just when you learn to make the most of your life, it is almost over. 

For more information on Kathy Lette and her books visit

https://www.kathylette.com/

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: I Wanted You to Know by Laura Pearson.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Dear Edie, I wanted you to know so many things. I wanted to tell you them in person, as you grew. But it wasn’t to be.


This wonderful book left me uplifted and sad all at the same time. This is the bittersweet story of Jessica, a young single mum who finds out she has cancer. As the novel opens, Jess and her baby daughter Edie, have recently moved back home with her Mum. Jess had left home for university, but circumstances have forced her back to her home town. This main narrative, set in Jess’s present, is interspersed with letters written by Jess to her baby. Each letter starts with ‘ I wanted you to know’ and through them we learn about the life she had at university, her relationship with Jake and the unexpected pregnancy that changes everything. The timing of this baby is all wrong, falling just as Jess’s boyfriend Jake is offered a tour with his band. Determined that Jake should follow his dream, the couple had decided to separate, but Jess’s own father left when she was young and she doesn’t want the same for her daughter. So she continues to keep him up to date with baby news until Jake’s contact with slowly fizzles out and Jess comes to the conclusion he is not interested in the pregnancy or having a relationship with daughter Edie. By the time Edie is born, the couple are no longer in regular contact and Jess has to face up to the fact she will be a single mother. Jess approaches her post-natal check up feeling daunted and then receives the news that changes everything. Jess has breast cancer. Now, a new beginning that’s daunting but joyous and filled with hope for the future, is overshadowed by weighty decisions, difficult conversations and the horrible fear that she may have to leave Edie facing life without her.


The narrative gave me a very real sense that the time Jess has left is ebbing away like the sands of an hourglass. As treatment options fail, Jess has so much left undone. Jess’s devastation that she won’t be able to be go through all the milestones that mothers and daughter enjoy together is palpable. So in order to be sure she’s there for these moments Jess begins the letters that will let her daughter know where she comes from and how much her mum loved her. This is even more vital when we realise that Jess’s past relationship with her own mum is far from perfect. However, despite some rough patches, her mum is stepping up and we never doubt that she loves her daughter and wants to help. Even if she does make some terrible mistakes in the way she handles things and on one occasion does one of the worst things you can do to someone with a terminal or life-limiting illness; she takes Jess’s power away. I was genuinely worried whether Jess would be strong enough to take it back.


The way Jess copes with Jake made me long for her to find her voice, even if just for her baby’s sake. She is so worried about ruining Jake’s tour that she doesn’t keep him informed. His contact with her simply dries up and although she is hurt and shouldering her fears about becoming a mum by herself, she doesn’t contact him. Then as the shock of the cancer diagnosis hits she is even more paralysed. If she does let him know, and he cuts his dream short, will he always resent her and his daughter. She doesn’t even know how he feels any more, but knows she wouldn’t want him to return to her because of the cancer. Realistically though, she needs to let him meet his daughter. They have to forge a relationship, especially if she does not respond to treatment.
The most compelling relationship for me was the friendship between Jess and Gemma. This novel is a love letter to female friendship and I liked that this relationship felt the most ‘fleshed out’ in the whole story. Right from the start Gemma is backing Jess up while juggling a job and babysitting Edie when she’s not working. Where the other relationships throw up complications, Gemma seems to know what Jess needs before anyone else. She counteracts Jess’s mum’s tendency to judge and make decisions that don’t include her. Instead she is quietly there all the time, and has an ability to sink into the background when Jess needs time alone or with Edie. Most importantly she encourages Jess but doesn’t take her choices away. She makes it clear that Jess needs to speak to Jake, but stays out of their relationship. When Jess’s mum oversteps the mark, Gemma gives her friend encouragement to speak and permission to be angry. Their relationship shows that our friends are often more supportive than family. It teaches us that our female friendships are often the long term relationships in our lives and that the best friends sustain each other, even in the most difficult situations.


I like that the last words In the book are Jess’s own in the form of her final letter to her daughter. I did have a lump in my throat reading some parts of this and at different points I thought how authentic the voice was, especially in Jess’s letters because they are unfiltered. Often, when reading or watching fictional accounts of illness I become frustrated by inaccuracies or events that are totally impossible. This comes from the life experiences I bring when reading a book. When reading this I felt it was well researched or that someone had used their own experiences to tell Jess’s story. I wasn’t surprised to read that Laura Pearson had a similar diagnosis of breast cancer because her experience shone through. The bewilderment and fear of those closest to Jess felt true to my experience; I lost my husband to the complications of multiple sclerosis when he was only 42 and I was 35. I remember two strong and very contrary feelings. On one hand I was constantly busy and overwhelmed with the paraphernalia of caring for someone who’s dying. I was panicked that time was slipping away from us and I resented it being spent dealing with feeding tubes, chest physiotherapy and the constant fear of infection. While other days felt like a nightmare, living a parallel life where the same routine was replayed over and over while everyone else was getting on with the real business of life. We became a small, committed unit with only one focus and as I read the novel I could see Jess’s loved ones doing the same. They drop out of normal everyday life to focus on their loved one and as I was reading I was aware of the devastation they would feel if they lost Jess anyway. When the person you love becomes terminally ill, and you become their carer, the sense of loss after their death seems compounded by suddenly having no purpose. I went from caring for my husband 70+ hours a week to waking up with nothing to do all day. It complicates the grief. The loss becomes multiple; the person you love, your role as spouse, your job and purpose, structure and status are all gone. The final chapters of Laura’s novel brought this back to me.


I was also heavily invested in Jess’s emotions, she becomes a young, single Mum knowing this new life may be cut brutally short. Jess barely has time to enjoy Edie, before she has to worry about leaving her. She has come to terms with her choice to postpone university and encourage Jake to follow his dream because she assumes, like we all do, that she has all the time in the world. She might not have time to pick up these parts of her life and she may not have time to settle into being a Mum. Questions constantly flash through her mind. If Jake returns, does he love her or is he only there because she’s so ill? How will he cope becoming a single Dad and who might he form relationships with in the future? Most heartbreaking of all; what if Edie doesn’t remember her? This is what prompts her to start writing. She wants to write down everything she thought or felt about her new baby and also pass on those bits of motherly wisdom that would be otherwise lost. Even if Edie does lose her Mum, she will have a constant sense of her through those letters and the pieces of advice she gives. Most importantly, she will know that at this crucial moment of her Mum’s life, she was so glad of her decision to have Edie and that Edie’s loss is uppermost in her mind.

The author delivers weighty subject matter with a real lightness of touch. At times I was reading with a lump in my throat, but I always looked forward to picking up Jess’s story and spending time in her world. The reader always brings something to the book and in this case, my reading experience was more poignant because of my own loss and possibly because of the limitations due to my own long term health problems. I think the author has been so clever to write about a life-changing experience, but never let it become too heavy to read. Despite the heartbreak, there are moments of every day humour and I felt genuinely uplifted by the depiction of female friendship. In difficult times I have found that even whether I’ve had a committed partner or not, it is my female friends who are always constant and hold me up when I can’t do it for myself. Jess and Gemma embody this and I found myself hoping that the author had a Gemma during her own illness. Mostly, I am very grateful that Laura Pearson had the bravery to write about something so close to her own experience, and to write about it with humour, honesty and raw emotion.

Meet the Author

Thanks so much for taking a look at my books. I write what some people call emotional women’s fiction and others call book club fiction. It doesn’t really matter what it’s called – I mostly write about women living ordinary lives and the extraordinary things that sometimes happen to them. I set my novels in places I’ve lived – London, Leicestershire, Cheshire, Southampton – and I people them (mostly) with the kind of women I’d like to meet. 

Some themes I find myself returning to again and again are sibling relationships, enduring friendships, women supporting women, and the tiny decisions that can alter the course of a life. I hope you find something here you’d like to read. 

When I’m not writing or reading, I’m usually hanging out on Twitter (@laurapauthor), so I might see you there, too. 

With love, 

Laura

Taken from Laura’s Amazon author page,

Posted in Monthly Wrap Up

Best Reads June 2025

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve had a lovely reading month, with the subject of love and relationships being at the centre of most of my best reads in June. Possibly due to it being wedding season, romance seems to have been in the air and all my reads looked at it in a very different way. A couple are set in the present day but others range from the late 18th to the mid- 20th Century. Yet there was a sense of familiarity, with each book showing the difficulties in how women and men relate to each other and negotiate the rules of their relationship. Women seemed to wait an awful lot, trying to balance a career and a relationship not to mention children and home life. Some women were waiting for proposals, for a man to commit, to be faithful, or for life to begin. They bring up the age old question of women having it all and whether that’s ever possible. There’s also a lot of travel involved from the UK, to America, Italy, France, Switzerland, India and Australia. I hope you all have a great tbr lined up for July and I’ll see you on the other side.

Walnut Tree Island sits in a tributary of the Thames and back in the 1960s its part derelict became a sought after music venue, thanks to the work of its owner George. Based on Eel Pie Island, Walnut Tree is a harmonious combination of up and coming musicians, artists and picturesque riverboats and in 1965 is a weekly Mecca for young people. One of them is Mary Star, a young girl with a beautiful voice and a head full of dreams. It’s there one night when musician and up and coming front man Ossie Clark notices Mary in the crowd as she’s hoisted up on someone’s shoulders. Ossie is about to hit the big time, but he’s captivated by Mary and when he meets her he encourages her to sing with him. They are so in love and lay down in the grasses by the Wilderness – the most beautiful part of the island. When reality hits Mary knows she has to make a choice for both of them, although Ossie doesn’t reject the idea of becoming a father. He asks her to go to America with him, but the adults in her life, including George, make her realise how difficult that’s going to be. There will be compromises and although Ossie can’t see it now, what if he resents her and their baby? She’s left with her baby Ruby and a broken heart, but also a place to live on the island gifted by George. 

Years later her granddaughter Jo experiences first love on the island. Used to running wild between Mary’s cottage Willows and houseboats, she meets George’s grandson Oliver when he visits the island. He’s the island’s heir, but such things don’t matter to young people and they have a magical summer thinking their love is all they need to sustain them. Now Oliver has returned from NYC as the new owner of Walnut Tree Island which has become a thriving community of musicians and artists all supported by Mary who is the mother of the community. The whispers over what might happen to the island start fairly quickly, not least the ownership of Willows that has always been a verbal agreement with George. Jo now teaches art to children in one of the houseboats. Once an incredible artist she seems to lose her confidence in creating and her career never fully got off the ground. How will she cope with Oliver back on the island, as handsome as ever, but with a touch of New York sophistication? More to the point, how will Oliver feel seeing Jo again? It’s not long before the red-headed firebrand is at his door, fighting on behalf of Mary and the rest of the community. But does she really know what his plans are? Changes are coming to the island, but some things are as constant as the river flows. Could their love be one of them? This is a captivating and magical read, thanks to its romantic setting and relatable female characters. An excellent holiday read.

Emily and Freddie have been through the mill of late. After a terrible accident when they were on holiday, Freddie has surprised her with the home of their dreams. Emily fell from a cliff on a group holiday and not only did she break her leg in several places, she then developed sepsis and almost lost her life. Now she’s in recovery, still walking on a stick and has been thrust into a whole new life. Larkin Lodge sits just outside a village on the edge of the moors and could be their dream home, but Emily can’t believe Freddie made this huge decision without her. The house is gothic and in the mists and murk of winter it looks a little isolated and spooky. However, she can see that in spring the views will be incredible. As Freddie continues to work in London, Emily spends a lot of time alone and starts to feel uneasy. Sudden drafts and disgusting smells, then heavy footsteps moving across the second floor are unnerving. Freddie is convinced she’s struggling with post concussion syndrome and calls her ITU consultant for advice – much to Emily’s disgust for doing this behind her back. As she starts to look into the history of the house and questions some of the locals, all the different parts of her life start to fall apart. Secrets start to come to light and Emily wonders if the house is having an influence on her. 

Emily is a sympathetic narrator although she’s not entirely reliable. It must be so disorientating to wake from a coma and know that your body has been present but your mind has been somewhere else. Added to that is the risk of ICU psychosis – a common condition causing auditory hallucinations, nightmares, sleep disturbances and paranoia. The author cleverly creates tension between what we know about Freddie and Emily and what they know about each other. They’re both keeping secrets and Freddie projects all their problems on to her. Even when she’s quite measured and reasonable or accepts his apologies he becomes angrier. Just occasionally he pauses and wonders where these thoughts are coming from? Is it the shock of Emily’s fall still working on him or is something more insidious at work?  Of course it wouldn’t be a Sarah Pinborough novel without a supernatural element and this one is genuinely scary. It begins with the window on the landing, seemingly opening of it’s own accord. When she starts talking to older locals about the house there’s a moment that genuinely made the hair stand up on the back of my neck! The chapters from the raven’s perspective are very touching as well as creepy.  Was this an edge of the seat thriller or a ghost story? We’re never quite sure, but I felt compelled to keep reading and find out. Sarah Pinborough is the Queen of this type of gothic thriller and this was another brilliant read, keeping you guessing till the very end. 

This book is definitely up there for my book of the year so far and it will take something momentous to knock it from that position. It’s the story of Mary Shelley and the origins of her novel Frankenstein which became a staple of the horror genre. I’d always known that it was a novel of monstrous birth, but the author has pulled all the ideas together so we can see the psychological background of the novel. I loved the idea that her story is stitched together by fragments, just like the monster himself. Her own emotions and thoughts feed into the emotions of the abandoned monster. She thinks of medical experiments and stories of medical students digging up bodies and stealing them for dissection. Frankenstein leaves his monster just as Shelley left Mary and their baby in squalor in London at the mercy of bailiffs. Frankenstein can be read as a criticism of men, creating with no thought for the thing they’ve created. Victor Frankenstein goes to sleep expecting his creature to die and feels nothing. The creature feels a combination of Mary’s grief and abandonment, having lost her mother at birth and then the losing of her father, as she runs away with Shelley, a married man. William Godwin brought Mary up to have a rebellious spirit and think for herself, but rejects her when she lives by these principles. Mary is this bewildered and angry creature and she gives her monster the equivalent of philosopher John Locke’s tabula rasa – the blank slate of a small child ready to experience nature, love and all that is beautiful. He embodies the nature/nurture debate in that the creature isn’t born evil, it’s other people’s cruel treatment of him that makes him monstrous. Her writing helps process all these feelings and. working through them makes her feel hopeful for the first time. She might return to London with her son and instead of being beholden to Shelley or her father, she could keep them both with her own writing. 

Typically, blinded by his own arrogance Shelley doesn’t see himself in Victor Frankenstein at all. The book, like the creature at its centre, will be sent out into the wilderness looking for a creator. She’s fairly sure it will find one because she knows it’s special. Caroline’s book is an absolute masterpiece and made me think about Frankenstein from so many different angles. Caroline Lea’s Mary take us through the psychological angles and brings to life her relationship with Shelley, often told in a rather salacious or romantic way without any thought to the inequality between them. It traces the genesis of this incredible novel. It is stitched together from so many different parts, but here we can see them all and understand the circumstances they come from. What she’s written is a Bildungsroman, a novel of Mary growing up from girl to womanhood. Frankenstein is the chronicle of that birth, as messy, terrifying, horrific and momentous it is, it is also the genesis of Mary Shelley the writer.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

London 1990s – An up and coming French composer called Stan is invited to arrange music for a stage production of Dorian Gray. Although the play is never staged, he does meet Liv and she becomes the love of his life. They live together, joined by a daughter called Lisa. Their happiness fuels his senses with vibrant colours and melodious music. Paris, Present Day – Stan lives in France at the Rabbit Hole, a house left to him by his aunt. He now shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a teenage boy of Lisa’s age. They also share their home with Laïvely, a machine built by Stan and given Liv’s voice. As Stan becomes more engrossed in his past Laïvely starts to take on a life of her own. His life is about to implode.

Stan presents his life in two narratives, the present in France and the past where he was at his most creative, happy and in love. His relationship with Liv is almost idyllic. Anything he relates of his present can only suffer in comparison. We learn that he and Babette are compatible, but there is none of the life and vivid colour that comes from his reminiscence. We are all nostalgic about the past, but no relationship can be perfect especially when cramped into the average London apartment with a small baby. While it is touching and romantic, the cynic in me wondered was this a true picture? As for Liv, she is in technicolour in Stan’s flashbacks with her vivid red hair. However, all that life is now reduced to a communication device and no matter how Stan cuddles Laïvely to him, she is inanimate, merely a machine. In what way is this a fitting representation of the love of his life? The author brings the truth to light brilliantly and I feared Stan’s mind was splitting. Stan seems to imagine that he and Liv would have lived in this harmonious way forever, but as the truth emerges Stan’s perception of himself starts to shatter. Babette finds him catatonic and soaking wet, having to place him in a hot bath and slowly bringing him back to himself. It’s the most nurturing, selfless and loving part of the book and it’s all the more sad that he hasn’t before recognised or rewarded her love and loyalty. He also realises that there were times he was too distant and distracted with Liv, that he stopped paying her attention. It was as if he had imagined them always walking towards a common goal but truthfully, he knows they were out of pace with one another. As the ‘tick, tock’ of the clock at the Rabbit Hole reminds us that the end is approaching we fully comprehend this heartbreaking story. This is no ordinary loss and it’s clear that Stan has never faced the truth of their final days until now. This is an emotional end that has one final twist to impart and it is devastating. It seems that Stan has always held on to Liv’s portrait, but is was a ‘painting turned against the wall’, keeping it’s secrets until that final terrible reveal.

It was so lovely to be back in Adriana Trigiani’s world. It always feels like a hug in a book! Jess (short for Guiseppina Capidimonte Baratta) is an artist who designs pieces made with marble, everything from a garden fountain to a baptismal font. She lives with her family in the New Jersey town of Lake Como. Ever since she finished school Jess has worked with her uncle Luis at his marble business, shipping newly quarried Italian marble to the United States. Jess is at a stage in life when she’s longing for something new. After divorcing her childhood sweetheart and local heartthrob Bobby Bilancia she’s been living in her parent’s basement. Their mothers, who have a long held friendship, are openly praying for their reconciliation. Jess could see her whole life mapped out, in fact her namesake Aunt Guiseppina has given her the blueprint – the maiden aunt, chief baby sitter for her sibling’s kids, cook and bottle washer for family dinners, and eventually caring for their elderly parents. When the family experience an unexpected loss, coupled with financial worries, secrets come tumbling out of every closet. Jess decides to take the trip to Italy that had been planned for work. Now she’ll use it as a change of scene rather than just a work trip. Finally, she will see her ancestor’s homeland. Taking us to Lake Como via Milan, Jess falls in love with Italy and all it has to offer. 

This story is a common narrative in the author’s novels. A young, ambitious and talented woman is looking for a lucky break or a foothold in the family business and has an adventure. Jess is slightly different in that she’s older and has already found her Prince Charming once. Stressful situations usually floor Jess, who has suffered from anxiety all her life. The family carry brown paper bags wherever they go. Yet Jess has withstood the questions and judgement about her divorce and sticks with her decision, only confiding in her online counsellor and her journal. She sets out to her Uncle Louis’s hometown to visit the marble quarries that supply their marble but also meet with local stonemasons who use it. It should be useful for her work but also give her the head space she needs after the divorce, her loss and those family home truths that left her very angry with her parents. When she meets Angelo Strazzi, a talented local craftsman, there’s instant chemistry and future possibilities start to open up. As always Italy is a revelation and Trigiani writes about it in a way that only an Italian American can. There’s familiarity and nostalgia that comes from knowing her family are from here, but there’s also the wonder and magic of the tourist view too. It’s the best of both worlds. Mostly I loved that Italy seems to set Jess free, in her own right. She’s away from a community that claims to know her better than she knows herself, but also from the suffocating combination of her own family and that of her ex-husband. Free from a future that she and her family saw for her – that of the maiden aunt. Maybe it’s the mountains but Jess can breathe in Italy.  I came out of the novel feeling like I’d been on holiday. I won’t ruin the book by telling you what Jess’s choices are, but the ending isn’t the only important thing. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did. 

I was three quarters of the way through this novel before I found out it was based on a true story. Zara was a fashion designer, founding a dress shop called Magg with her best friend Betty in her twenties. Freeman’s novel follows Zara’s life from her meeting with Harry Holt and their relationship, which would dominate most of her life. The novel takes us on her travels, into her career as a fashion designer and businesswoman and the volatility of her relationship with Holt. Harry comes across as a selfish and ambitious man, who clearly loved Zara but was slow to commit and couldn’t curb his womanising ways. Zara is constantly waiting, whether it’s for him to propose marriage or to be faithful to her. She is torn between wanting a monogamous relationship or accepting both Harry’s love and the fact it comes with many compromises on her part. I’m not sure I could have made those compromises, but despite breaking off their relationship and even marrying an officer from the British Army and living in India, she finds it impossible to leave behind those feelings. Aside from her love life, Zara is a remarkable woman and one of those multi-tasking geniuses I envy. She managed to create an empire that paid for the couple’s holiday homes on different parts of the Australian coast and even when on political trips abroad, particularly as Harry was moving towards becoming prime minister, she used local fashions as inspiration and bought fabric to be shipped back. I had to remind myself I was reading a historical novel when frustrated with societal expectations and attitudes, because Zara was such a modern woman and seemed ahead of her time.

As always I have a loose tbr for July while I’m project managing our kitchen renovation. I’ll be frazzled by the time it’s done as I hate change and noise, but I’ll need to be at home so lots of reading time ❤️📚

Posted in Travel Fiction

Summer Holiday Reads: The Greek Islands

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Classics

Three classic tales of childhood on an island paradise – My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell – make up The Corfu Trilogy.

Just before the Second World War the Durrell family decamped to the glorious, sun-soaked island of Corfu where the youngest of the four children, ten-year-old Gerald, discovered his passion for animals: toads and tortoises, bats and butterflies, scorpions and octopuses. Through glorious silver-green olive groves and across brilliant-white beaches Gerry pursued his obsession . . . causing hilarity and mayhem in his ever-tolerant family. This book is joyous and has the reputation of being the only book my brother loved. The Durrells are gloriously eccentric and this trilogy transports you to Corfu so well it’s like taking a holiday.

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician.

When Pelagia, the local doctor’s daughter, finds her letters to her fiancé go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender? Forget the awful film, in which barely anyone was Greek, and pick this up if you haven’t already. Not only is it a great chronicle of WW2 in Greece, but it is a touchingly beautiful love story you’ll want to read again.

‘That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. . .’

I read a recent review where Three Summers was touted as a Greek I Capture The Castle and that draws me in straight away. This is a warm and tender tale of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a ramshackle old house with their divorced mother are flirtatious, hot-headed Maria, beautiful but distant Infanta, and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three summers, the girls share and keep secrets, fall in and out of love, try to understand the strange ways of adults and decide what kind of adults they hope to become. A beautiful story of growing up, sisterhood and first love.

Retold Myths

Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making . . . So I’ll spin my own thread.

Penelope. Immortalised in legend and Greek myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband’s return from the Trojan war. 

Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: her own side of the story – a tale of lust, greed and murder. This is one of the first novels to write back to Greek Myth, to tell the story of a sidelined character in the tale of Odysseus. Atwood tells a tale of the Trojan War from a feminist perspective, looking through the eyes of Penelope who has no action or agency in the original myth, only appearing as the dutiful wife.

‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters’

Medusa is so hard done to who acts like a cautionary tale about the meddling Greek gods. Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt.

When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim. Medusa is changed forever – writhing snakes for hair and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. She can look at nothing without destroying it.

Desperate to protect her beloved sisters, Medusa condemns herself to a life of shadows. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .

After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.

Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come.

Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.

As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever. This is a brilliant retelling of a myth we know so well and the reality of war from a female perspective.

Crime Fiction

Mykonos had always had a romantic reputation, until the body of a female tourist was found on a pile of bones under the floor of amountain church. The island’s new police chief starts finding bodies, bones and suspects almost everywhere he looks. This thriller has a great atmosphere, is perfect for readers who love a good mystery and also Greek legends, which the author weaves throughout her story. The reader is firmly on the side of the heroine, trying desperately to escape her fate. You will also be rooting for Inspector Kaldis, who was recently demoted from Athens to the isle of Mykonos. He’s trying to avoid the political pitfalls on the island as he pursues the Killer, whose identity is not revealed until the end of the story. This is a fun one for the reader to speculate on as the action builds to a nail-biting climax. Highly enjoyable and addictive.

SOMEONE’S POISONING PARADISE

Detective Inspector Jack Dawes is travelling to a tiny Greek island with wife Corinne, ready for a bit of sun, sea and sand.

However, one of their fellow travellers is a ruthless killer.
When a storm destroys the island’s primitive communications, cutting it off from civilisation, people begin to panic. One victim is poisoned, followed swiftly by another. Then a woman is found in a grotto to St Sophia, the island’s patron saint. She is badly beaten. It feels as if the island’s visitors are being picked off one by one. Can Jack uncover the truth before the killer ups the ante?

Who will return home — and who will be sacrificed to the island?

Historical Fiction

It’s May 1941, when the island of Crete is invaded by paratroopers from the air. After a lengthy fight, thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers are forced to take to the hills or become escaping PoWs, sheltered by the Cretan villagers.

Sixty years later, Lois West and her young son, Alex, invite feisty Great Aunt Pen to a special eighty-fifth birthday celebration on Crete, knowing she has not been back there since the war. Penelope George – formerly Giorgidiou – is reluctant, but is persuaded by the fact it is the 60th anniversary of the Battle. It is time for her to return and make the journey she never thought she’d dare to. On the outward voyage from Athens, she relives her experiences in the city from her early years as a trainee nurse to those last dark days stranded on the island, the last female foreigner.

When word spreads of her visit, and old Cretan friends and family come to greet her, Lois and Alex are caught up in her epic pilgrimage and the journey which leads her to a reunion with the friend she thought she had lost forever – and the truth behind a secret buried deep in the past…

Victoria Hislop is the Queen of fiction set on the Greek Islands, ever since her book The Island

25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.

When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.

In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.

Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island – the award-winning novel where we first met Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island… and beyond. Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother’s past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. 

Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip…

In The Figurine we are taken beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment that Helena McCloud has inherited from her grandparents, There she discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship.

Helena’s fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home – for cultural treasures and for herself.

It seems crazy to think of the 1960s as a historical era, but it is now 60 years ago! In this dreamy and bohemian novel, Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It’s the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra and is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever.

Romance and Self-Love

Set on the breathtaking island of Andros, The Jasmine Isle is one of the finest literary achievements in contemporary Greek literature. Mina Saltaferou is the despotic wife of a ship’s captain, Savvas Saltaferos. Her tyrannical influence over her two daughters is unquestionable and unrelenting, like nature itself. Tragedy becomes inevitable when Mina’s beautiful, eldest daughter, Orsa, is sentenced by her mother to marry a man she doesn’t love and watch as the man she does love weds another.

I love a family saga and this one spans half a century in the history of modern Greece, this novel explores the solace and joy women find in each other’s company during the insufferably long absences of their husbands, sons, and lovers. The story alternates between descriptions of domestic life and evocations of the world’s seas and ports, as it follows both the men who embark on voyages lasting months and the lives of the women who remain behind

Calli’s world has fallen apart – her relationship is suddenly over and her chances of starting a family are gone. So when she’s sent to write a magazine article about the Greek island of Ikaria, it seems the perfect escape.

Travelling to Crete, where her family is from, Calli soon realizes there is more to discover than paradise beaches and friendly locals. When her aunt Froso begins to share the story of her own teenage heartache, will the love, betrayal and revenge she reveals change Calli’s life forever?

As a young woman, Helena spent a magical holiday at Pandora, a beautiful house in Cyprus – and fell in love for the first time. Now, twenty-four years later and following the loss of her godfather, she has inherited Pandora. And, though it is a crumbling shadow of its former self, Helena returns with her family to spend the summer there.

When, by chance, Helena meets her childhood sweetheart, her past threatens to collide with her present. She knows that the idyllic beauty of Pandora masks a web of secrets that she has kept from her husband and thirteen-year-old son. And that, once its secrets have been revealed, their lives will never be the same . . .

Sophie Keech has it all. A new life in Greece with a handsome man enables Sophie to leave her mundane job and her estranged mum. But four years on, a domineering mother-in-law to be and the reality of living in Greece not being what Sophie imagined, strains her relationship with Alekos. 

When her mum is involved in an accident, Sophie jumps at the chance to escape. Time to reassess her life and make amends is sorely needed. Yet an attraction to a good looking and newly divorced man, and a shock discovery, complicates things.

Can Sophie and Alekos’ love survive the distance?

Can one house hold a lifetime of secrets?

Corfu, 1930, the moment Thirza Caruthers sets foot on Corfu, memories flood back: the scent of jasmine, the green shutters of her family’s home ― and her brother Billy’s tragic disappearance years before. Returning to the Greek house, high above clear blue waters, Thirza tries to escape by immersing herself in painting ― and a passionate affair. But as webs of love, envy, and betrayal tighten around the family, buried secrets surface, is it finally time to uncover the truth about Billy’s vanishing?

New To Look Forward To.

Could discovering a family secret encourage Kat to follow her heart?

Shattered by the sudden loss of her twin, Nik, Kat is lost in grief. The comfort of family feels both soothing and suffocating, but everything changes when she inherits a house on the breathtaking Greek island of Agistri from a mysterious uncle she’s never met.

Arriving on Agistri, Kat is mesmerized by its crystalline waters, lush pine forests, and the citrus-scented air. Among the white-washed houses and warm, welcoming locals, she begins to feel her heart heal. The island offers more than solace, sparking courage in Kat to face her loss — and maybe even embrace the spark of unexpected love…

But as she unearths her family’s buried past, Kat must also confront her own fears of belonging, forgiveness — and the possibility of rediscovering happiness in the shadow of heartbreak…

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Uplifting and Comforting Reads From Adriana Trigiani.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

You know the world has really gone to hell when you click on a streaming service and they highlight a section as uplifting and good for your mental health. What with WW3 seemingly round every corner, every news programme hijacked by the antics of Trump and his attack dog JD Vance, Elon Musk waving a child or a chainsaw over his head and for me personally, the threat of losing my disability benefits. I’m also averaging at least one medical appointment every week as each test throws up something we never expected! Life is a wee bit stressful for all of us at the moment and I wondered whether it might be nice to spotlight some of my favourite authors who write uplifting and joyful fiction. I’m going to spotlight a few different authors on Sundays, suggesting some older novels and some that are worth keeping an eye out for through the rest of 2025. I will point out where there are tough themes in a novel, but even where there’s a lot to overcome in these novels the ending is always ultimately uplifting and inspiring.

I think it was my mum who first gave me one of Adriana Trigiani’s books to read and I think she got it from Oprah. My first taste of her work was one of her Valentina books, a series of books following an American Italian young woman as she starts to make her way in the world. Her family have been makers of custom wedding shoes since 1903. The Angelini Shoe Company trades from Greenwich Village, NYC and is one of the area’s last family run businesses. Now it’s in trouble and Valentina, working as apprentice to her grandmother Theodora, wants to bring their years of craftsman’s experience into the twenty-first century market. Valentine is juggling a lot of different commitments: her romance with chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family and entering a design competition for a very prestigious competition for a department store. When she accompanies her grandmother to Italy they hope to find inspiration, she spends time in Tuscany and Capri. She’s overjoyed to find her artistic style but the trip changing her life in ways she never expected.

In the second book of the trilogy, Valentina’s plans have go awry. We start with a celebration as her grandmother marries the love of her life in Tuscany, but Valentina’s own romance is not going so well. It’s a second blow when her grandmother announces thar her brother Alfred is becoming her partner in the family business, not Valentine. She decides to devote herself to work and takes a trip to Buenos Aires for new connections and ideas. Emotionally though she’s caught between two loves, one who’s always nurtured her and another that promises to sustain her future. In the final book Valentine is living out her choices and continuing to modernise the firm. As she prepares to marry the man she has chosen, she is faced with painful choices and a fight for what she wants from life. Can the Angelina Shoe Company make it’s mark and will Valentine be able to savour the wonderful things she deserves. These books really are sumptuous, full of gorgeous fashion details and since I love shoes I really appreciate Valentine’s designs. We get the bustle and modernity of Manhattan, contrasted with her trips to Italy and Argentina to small artisan shoemakers. We get to be an armchair holiday maker too as we drink in the wonderful sights and food that she enjoys too. Of course there are challenges in Valentine’s life, some of the hardest life can throw at her, but ultimately we know she will triumph and get her happy ending.

Big Stone Gap is a sleepy village where kids get married and start families at eighteen, and stay for ever. So thirty-five-year old Ave Maria Mulligan is something of an oddity. A self-proclaimed spinster, as the local pharmacist she’s been keeping the townsfolk’s secrets for years. But Ave Maria is about to discover a scandal in her own family’s past that will blow the lid right off her quiet, uneventful life. Soon she’s juggling two unexpected marriage proposals and conducting a no-holds-barred family feud. The thought of spending the rest of her life in Big Stone Gap is suddenly overwhelming . .

In our second instalment, eight years have passed since town pharmacist and self-proclaimed spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married the man of her choice. Now they have a beautiful daughter, but for some reason her husband seems distant. In their comfortable stone house in the mountains there’s an empty room where their son slept. Ave and Jack haven’t found a way past their sadness and are struggling to share their feelings. In the town change is coming and is causing concern among the residents. With this backdrop, Ave must make decisions for her family and try to find a way back to her husband.

In the third part of the trilogy, Ave Maria feels time is slipping through her fingers as she watches her daughter growing up. It seems like a period of change for her friends too and her husband is desperate to reinvent himself in ways nobody could have predicted. Are they experiencing a mid-life crisis? Ave is about to have her foundations rocked and face the true test of love: letting go. I love this series because it’s so cozy and has that small town heart-warming feel. I found myself so invested in her family and seeing how they grow over time is a joy. I believe there is now a fourth novel in the series and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

More recently the author has moved to historical fiction and mid-century Italy, as well as a fascinating look at the golden age of Hollywood and a real-life scandal about Clark Gable. I’m so looking to her new novel out in July this year and perfect for summer holidays. Recently divorced, Jess Capodimonte Baratta helps her Uncle Louie with his marble business from her parents’ basement in Lake Como, New Jersey. An unexpected loss within the family unearths a long-buried secret and Jess questions where her loyalties lie. Deciding a change of scene is needed, she escapes to Italy – her ancestral home. We will be swept away to the majestic marble-capped mountains of Tuscany to the glittering streets of Milan and the enchanting shores of Lake Como, which despite a shared name could not be more different from her hometown, Jess soon feels a sense of belonging. And when she meets dreamy Angelo Strazza, a passionate artist, she know that this is where she is meant to be. But as further revelations about her family history come to light, it’s clear that Italy cannot be Jess’ hiding place forever. This sounds like the perfect comfort read to me.

Recently divorced, Jess Capodimonte Baratta helps her Uncle Louie with his marble business from her parents’ basement in Lake Como, New Jersey. But when an unexpected loss within the family unearths long-buried secrets, Jess questions where her loyalties lie. Deciding a change of scene is needed, she escapes to Italy – her ancestral home.

From the shadows of the majestic marble-capped mountains of Tuscany to the glittering streets of Milan and the enchanting shores of Lake Como, which despite a shared name could not be more different from her hometown, Jess soon feels a sense of belonging. And when she meets dreamy Angelo Strazza, a passionate artist, she know that this is where she is meant to be.

But as further revelations about her family history come to light, it’s clear that Italy cannot be Jess’ hiding place forever.

Will the dark truths of her ancestral past send her back home?

Or help her finally live life on her own terms?

Coming July 2025 from Penguin Books

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Lifeline by Libby Page

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Libby Page novels always touch on interesting and difficult subjects, but through a very cosy lens – a balance that’s very hard to achieve. Her focus is women’s lives and here our main characters are Kate and Phoebe, both of whom are going through big life changes. Kate has recently given birth to daughter Rosie and moved from London to a small village, nearer to her family. Kate and her husband wanted Rosie to grow up with a garden and to spend time with her wider family. While her husband sets up his photography business, Kate has found the first few months of motherhood hard and hasn’t bonded with her daughter in the way she hoped. She’s also missing her job in journalism, her best friends and the buzz of her London life. Phoebe has lived in the village for a while, in a flat above some shops with her boyfriend Max. She is a mental health nurse with flame red hair and visits her patients on a motorbike. It’s all change when Max decides he’s leaving and takes all the furniture. Phoebe doesn’t give herself time to process the break-up and keeps pushing herself to visit patients. She doesn’t realise that right now, she also needs help. Could the village’s wild swimming group be what both women need to restore them back to themselves? 

I was immediately attracted to the character of Phoebe, having worked in similar roles most of my life. I thought this was a slightly sugar coated version of mental health work, that touched some of the realities without changing the feel of the book. It did show that no two days are the same and the difficult juggling act of seeing regular patients when another has a crisis and needs to seen immediately. Phoebe is very conscientious and usually ends up working longer hours and eating into her own downtime to ensure everyone is seen. I could see Phoebe was heading for burn out, always putting her own needs last and missing the people and activities that restore her soul. Ive never had a baby, but I have seen what a seismic change it is from my friend’s experiences. Their world’s shrink because they’re so overwhelmed by this small person who is so dependent on them. I didn’t always understand why friends hadn’t called or couldn’t come to events, but having stepdaughters has made me realise how all consuming parenthood is. I’ve definitely seen less of friends and sacrificed my own needs for theirs, and babies need so much more. What I noticed about both women was how difficult it was for them to admit they’re struggling. Phoebe is conditioned by her job to always put someone else first. Kate has been influenced by the Instagram yummy mummies and the perfection of her sister’s life. She feels inadequate next to them, not realising that social media is edited to show the best photos and most interesting experiences. It’s a case of comparison is the thief of joy. Could both these women change their lives by finding a moment for themselves by the river? 

The story is set in an idyllic little village with cozy details like a coffee and cake van down by the river, an Italian deli under Phoebe’s flat and picturesque stone cottages. It’s clearly affluent but as Phoebe’s clients show, sorrow and illness can come into any home. It’s these cute and cozy details that make the book feel like a warm hug. I loved the camaraderie of the wild swimming group and the way they all pulled together when their swimming spot is threatened due to contaminated water. There’s a touch of romance too, in the rather gorgeous shape of Italian Luca from the deli. I enjoyed the humour too, especially the bridal boutique incident – the most disturbing boutique incident since Bridesmaids. Above everything it’s the female friendship that absolutely sings in this novel, confirming something I know to be true; it’s the women in our lives that hold us up when we fall, celebrate when we’re happy and stick with us through the seismic changes women experience in life. 

Meet the Author

Libby Page is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lido and four other warm-hearted novels. She lives in Somerset, England with her family. Before becoming an author she worked in journalism and marketing. When not writing she can be found reading, and swimming outdoors.

Posted in Personal Purchase

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In Manhattan, Melina Green finds out that women’s voices are worth less than a man’s. Theatre critic Jasper Tolle eviscerates a play she has entered into a competition and it knocks her confidence so badly she finds it difficult to get her theatre career off the ground. Years later, her best friend Andre encourages her to write about her ancestor, 16th Century poet Emilia Bassano. Emilia has been described as the ‘dark lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Melina is inspired, furiously researching Emilia’s life and the possibility that she might have written for the stage, despite it being banned in Elizabethan England. She then wonders if she used a pseudonym or submitted her work under another playwright. Melina starts to read about the Shakespeare conspiracy – what if the bard didn’t write all those incredible plays after all? There are many theories out there about who could have written them, but what if the playwright was Emilia? Melina is inspired, ferociously writing her play. Andre is also inspired, after they celebrate her finishing the play and Melina sleeps, he decides to enter the play into a festival taking place ‘off off Broadway’. Cleverly deleting the last few letters of her name he enters it with the more ambiguous Mel Green. Could this be her big break and her chance to prove that women writers are still sidelined, even in the 21st Century? 

I’m a huge fan of Jodi Picoult and I met her when she was in the UK promoting her book Sing You Home. Her books usually follow a pattern of presenting controversial issues -abortion, racism, the Holocaust – then testing them through the legal process. The first book that really caught the UK imagination was My Sister’s Keeper where a young girl takes her parents to court for medical autonomy, after she has donated blood and bone marrow to her sister with leukaemia. She’s had no say in these medical procedures and feels like she’s spare parts for her sister. This new novel is a complete departure from this tradition and it reads like a labour of love. I collected my copy from The Rabbit Hole Bookshop in Brigg and had read several chapters while we drove to Liverpool. Picoult has a brilliant way of drawing you straight into the character’s world and this book is no exception, despite it spanning several centuries. Picoult’s best novels are the ones where she can touch on her Jewish heritage such as one of my favourites, The Storyteller. This has definitely played a part here and the passion with which she tells Emilia’s story makes everything come alive. 

Emilia is the sort of character I fall in love with. She’s determined, intelligent and dreams of being much more than women are allowed to be. Life deals her a terrible hand at times, but she tries to make the best of it. Sometimes she’s desperately struggling to survive and other times she’s living in the lap of luxury. Historically we only know fragments of Emilia’s life but she is mentioned in an article written by Elizabeth Winkler entitled ‘Was Shakespeare a Woman?’ We know that Emilia was from a Jewish family who kept up a pretence of Christianity outside their home. They were court musicians under Elizabeth I which dragged Emilia into the fringes of court life. Most information on her comes from the diary of Simon Forman who was an astrologer/doctor and he describes her as a woman who is sexually progressive and has one illegitimate child. He describes her as the paramour of Lord Hunsdon until she became pregnant and was then married off to a minstrel. Hunsdon was Lord Chamberlain with responsibility for entertainment and the theatre. Foreman describes her as beautiful and intelligent, but gives her the sad news that she will become pregnant again, but will miscarry. Picoult uses these small facts and others she’s found to flesh out this fascinating woman and pose the theory that she could, at least in part, have written the plays attributed to Shakespeare. The page is the only place where Emilia has any power or agency. She was brought up by a countess away from her family, the head of the family then sells her to Hunsdon as a courtesan and then to the minstrel Alphonso who squanders all of the money Hunsdon settled on her. Could this lack of agency have possibly create female characters with the sass of Beatrice, the adventurer in Viola, the manipulative and power hungry Lady MacBeth or the shrewish Katherine? 

There is so much to love here, from Emilia’s personal story with it’s twists and turns, to the fascinating possibility that Shakespeare is merely a front  rather than our greatest ever playwright. I enjoyed the idea of this woman who occupies a liminal space in so many ways: Italian by descent batt living in England; living humbly but entertaining the dazzling heights of Elizabeth’s court; Jewish but masquerading as Christians; living a rich lifestyle with Hunsdon but in the precarious position of a courtesan; a woman hiding her immense talent behind a man. Every single part of her life is a masquerade, in fact there are only two men she is herself with. She lets go with her secret lover Southampton and her great friend Kit Marlow – a friendship that beautifully echoes Melina and Andre’s relationship centuries later. Picoult’s skill in setting a scene takes us directly into Elizabethan London and we see the city at it’s extremes due to Emilia’s huge changes in fortune. The house she grows up in is a far cry from the humble home of her family and Hunsdon’s home is grander still. Then what follows are terrible years of hardship and violence, where she’s little more than a servant. They have very little to eat and we really see the squalor and poverty of the capital in those moments. I enjoyed the idea of literary salons as a space where women can freely share their talent and it’s only her position as Hunsdon’s mistress that gives her access to contemporaries like Spenser, Jonson and Marlow. I felt like even if the reader doesn’t agree with Picoult’s theory on Shakespeare her evidence is compelling and you realise she loves Britain and it’s literary tradition. 

The modern day narrative does pose some interesting questions about authorship, especially the opportunities for women. As someone who reads female authors the majority of the time it seems like the opportunities are there at first glance. Yet I took on board all the points made here, how in a commercial space it’s hard as a woman to secure financial backing for their creative ideas. Especially where those who hold the purse strings are men. Although I was interested in Melina’s story I didn’t feel as connected to her as a character in the same way I did with Emilia. When the historical story is so dramatic and heartfelt it can overshadow the present day narrative. Overall though I loved this book and it’s up there with my favourites of the year so far. I felt completely transported to Elizabethan London. As for the premise, it’s an interesting one and the afterword brilliantly backs up her theory with points from her background research. It certainly gave me something to think about where Shakespeare is concerned. I could see why people question his authorship, but I can also see the all the reasons why such claims are rubbished and denied. What I’m taking away though is what an incredible woman Emilia was, with or without the possibility she was a playwright. I’ll definitely enjoy exploring around the subject further and I know this is a book I’ll be re-reading in the future.

Published 10th October by Penguin

Meet the Author

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, including Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.

Follow Jodi Picoult on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter: @jodipicoult

Posted in Paperback Publication

In Bloom by Eve Verde

Posted on by thelotusreaders

‘This is my family story. From all I’ve sown together, through all I couldn’t ask. I want to be the bud who makes it.’

In Bloom tells of strength, survival, forgiveness, resilience and determination, and the fierce love and unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.

Ever since Sol’s untimely death left her pregnant and alone at twenty-two, Delph’s kept herself small as a form of self-protection. Now, over a decade later, she lives with their daughter Roche and her new partner Itsy, a kind and protective cabbie, on the fourteenth floor of Esplanade Point on the Essex coast.

But Delph’s protective bubble bursts when Roche moves in with her estranged nan, Moon. Feeling on the outside of the bond between her fierce-yet-flaky tarot-reading mother and volatile martial-arts-champion daughter, Delph begins questioning her own freedom. And when Roche’s snooping into her grandmother’s past unearths a familial line of downtrodden women; a worrying pattern emerges. Has keeping small and safe truly been Delph’s choice all these years…?

I’m hosting the paperback blog tour for this wonderful book today and it’s lost none of its charm and power since I read it last year. I don’t believe in trigger warnings, despite their intended purpose to flag up material that may ‘trigger’ difficult emotions in the reader, I feel that they might stop someone experiencing a connection with a text. It might well be a trigger, but that doesn’t always have to mean it’s a negative one. It might be a trigger that starts a healing process. If anyone should have avoided this book it was me, because I was Delphine. I lost the love of my life in my early thirties and then sleepwalked into a coercive and damaging relationship. Yes, it was a hard read at times, but it wasn’t a remotely negative experience. Moon, Delphine and Roche are three generations of a family. Each woman has her own issues, but they all stem from one place. Right back at the beginning.

As the book opens Roche can no longer live with her mother and Itsy, the man she’s been living with for most of Roche’s life. So she decamps to her grandmother Moon’s house. Roche can’t stand Itsy, he dislikes her and wishes she wasn’t there. In fact what he wants is Delphine all to himself, it’s easier to control someone who’s isolated. Delphine has had a glazed over look ever since he arrived in her life and she doesn’t seem like her mum anymore. Delphine has done everything she can to keep Itsy happy. She’s changed how she dressed, made herself less beautiful, stayed at home and stopped going out with friends. Every day she makes herself smaller to make more space for him and Roche can’t watch it anymore. However, things are changing slowly. Delphine has a job she enjoys at B & Q, new connections with her colleagues and today she has made a choice. Delphine is pregnant and she knows deep down in her soul that ‘the thought of more years, more life, tied to him’ is more than she can bear. She goes quietly on her own for an abortion, the quietest but most powerful act of rebellion she can make. Then comes her opportunity, Itsy receives a phone call from Jamaica to tell him his mother is dying. He must jump straight on a flight, so Delphine lets him go alone, knowing that now she has several weeks to herself. She doesn’t stop Roche from moving out and accepts this as her time to heal, time to be the parent that so often Roche has to be for her. However, this isn’t the only recovery needed in the three generations of this family thanks to the actions of men.

I felt at first that I was slowly piecing together the story of a client. Being a person- centred therapist means letting the client choose what they want to talk about. I would use my counselling skills to tease out that story and ask questions where it needs to be clarified or where I might only be getting one perspective. Here the story has it’s own pace and each woman narrates her own section. We flit back and forth, also delving into the past here and there and it’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle but only being handed one piece at a time, then another from a different angle. It takes some time to perceive the whole and that was definitely the case here. Only we the reader can see where they all are in relation to one another. The reality of being a woman in today’s world is explored fully, there is no doubt that these women’s lives would have been immeasurably better had they not encountered men. It takes Roche to articulate this properly with the words and wisdom of her generation.

“Roche knows, remembers, how her life changed at around the time she started secondary, and her bubble of invisibility popped. How, despite the school uniform screaming otherwise, she very suddenly became the inhabitant of a woman’s body, complete with a depressing self-awareness that this was now Roche’s life until one day men deemed her invisible again. In fairness, it’s not her contemporaries who usually do the perving – no, it’s men, grown–ass men who have always done the bulk of the wolf–whistling, the innuendoes and basic compliments that they expect her to ‘smile, love’ and be grateful for.”

As a middle aged woman I now know the power of that invisibility and how, in many ways, it’s a blessing.

I love how carefully the author drew the threads between generations, those behaviours that create a pattern of intergenerational trauma. There are moments in her journey where Delph needs her daughter by her side, but she recognises that it’s a selfish need. Delphi’s lived experience stops her; “is not for a child to fix the parent. Nor is Roche the ointment to Delph’s current troubles”. Then we go back into her mother Moon’s early years, when her grandmother is in hospital, suffering from mental ill health. Her name was still Joy back then and her job is to dispense sunshine to a women who can’t even remember her name. ‘Come on,’ Ma says, in a giddy-up way. ‘You know how happy your little face always makes her.’ This a learned behaviour, people pleasing and exactly what Delph is trying to avoid for her own daughter, three generations later. By sitting with her own pain, Delph is avoiding instilling that behaviour in her own daughter, she’s actively breaking the cycle. Yes, there are traumatic moments in these women’s lives, Moon’s story being particularly harrowing, but we can also see the women’s determination to change. It’s that change and what it means for Roche that brings such an uplifting feeling to the book. For me it’s Delph’s struggle that touched me deeply. The loss of Sol, who’d been there her entire life, is devastating. So moving out of Itsy’s orbit and the mental paralysis she’s been living with means opening up her emotions. That’s all of the emotions including her grief, but it’s a process that needs to happen so that Roche can talk about her father openly and in a joyful way. I found myself more engrossed in the later stages of the book as I had to see whether these women could heal together. This is beautifully written and manages to be funny, moving and hopeful.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Bookshop Ladies by Faith Hogan

Posted on by thelotusreaders

One sure way to entice us bookworms is to write a book about books and this one has all the warmth, friendship and female empowerment we would expect from a Faith Hogan novel. It’s like receiving a big warming hug, but in book form. Our central character is Joy and we meet her at a hugely traumatic point in her life. Joy lives in Paris with her husband Yves Bachand, a well-known art dealer who has made the career of many a new struggling artist. Joy has a very successful career of her own in public relations. Everything is turned upside down when Yves suffers a massive heart attack and in his dying moments manages to tell Joy he has a daughter. Over the next few weeks as Joy starts to comes to terms with losing her husband, she’s also trying to get her head around his dying words. Could he possibly have been unfaithful? The whole idea adds a new level of devastation because Joy and Yves couldn’t have children of their own. Their solicitor approaches Joy about an unusual request in his will, he has bequeathed a painting he owned to a girl called Robyn. When Joy returns home she goes into Yves’s office where the painting hangs and studies it, trying to see what he saw in this particular work of the Seine. Joy takes in the muddy coloured water, the litter and the green surroundings and thinks it could be a river anywhere. There is nothing to suggest this is the Seine that lovers travelling to Paris dream of walking along. Where are the honey coloured stones, the lampposts and the bridges? It takes time for her to notice anything about it she likes, but there is a streak of light that catches her eye in the top corner. The more she looks at it the more she wonders whether it was this glimmer that kept bringing Yves back to the painting. A promise that the grey cloud would lift and the sun would break through changing the whole scene to something altogether more hopeful. In this moment she makes a decision, she will travel to a Ireland and put this painting in the hands of Robyn herself.

We’re back in the gorgeous coastal village of Ballycove, where our other main character Robyn lives. Robyn has a small bookshop, with largely second hand books on various subjects from rare birds to trains. It’s been just ticking over for several years and while Robyn’s family own the building, including her flat above the shop, she has taken over the stock from it’s previous owner Douglas who has retired. To say the shop is a little tired is an understatement and it really needs some pizzazz to bring it back to life again. Yet it is lovely in it’s own way with it’s floor to ceiling bookshelves and their carvings of animals, little rooms for every subject and a darling little children’s section in a small nook. Although Robyn has put the stock onto online book sites she isn’t exactly turning a profit and she wonders if she’s made a big mistake. Her grandfather Albert suggests that she hire someone or find a volunteer to do a few hours in the shop to free Robyn up for business planning and working on her vision for the shop. Into this scenario walks Joy, renting the flat above Albert’s and hoping to stay for only a couple of weeks in order to pass on the painting. She can see that it belongs with Robyn as it was painted by her mother Fern. Joy both welcomes and dreads meeting Robyn and definitely her mother. If she can do it quickly, almost like ripping off a band aid, she can get the painting handed over and be back on a plane to Paris in no time. However, she hadn’t factored Robyn into the equation. She walks past the shop twice plucking up courage and when she does finally walk in she’s so taken aback by this girl who looks so much like Yves she could only be his daughter. Stunned into silence, Robyn’s chatter takes over and she assumes that Joy is there to apply for the position she advertised in the window. In her stunned state Joy doesn’t argue and soon she is Robyn’s new book assistant. Joy walks away wondering what on earth she’s done and how she’ll cope if Robyn’s mum turns up before she leaves.

I really enjoyed the women in this novel, especially Joy who is so resilient and generous with her time, her emotions and her heart. I felt like Ballycove worked it’s usual magic, but Joy matches it, bringing her enthusiasm and joie de vive to the bookshop. She’s using her professional skills of course, but there is just that touch of enchantment about her too. She’s like a bookish Mary Poppins, thinking up events and little touches to brighten the place including a toy train track which is one of my favourite parts of the brilliant Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland. Yet it’s the fact that she’s giving her time and expertise freely to her husband’s secret daughter that makes her all the more extraordinary. Yet I think she gets something special from Robyn too. Robyn allows her to spend time with someone with the characteristics and mannerisms of Yves and in a sense it seems to comfort her that he’s still here in the form of this shy, bookish girl. I also think Robyn balances some of the grief Joy went through when they lost their own baby who would have been a similar age. I was waiting to see what would happen when Robin’s mother Fern arrived. Would Fern immediately know who Joy was and what would it do to her relationship with Robyn? I felt sad that Joy might lose everything she’s built in Ballycove and the sense of family she’s enjoyed with Robyn and her grandfather. There’s a lovely little romantic subplot and a lot of personal growth on Robyn’s part, particularly the unresolved emotions around being bullied at school. The word that always best describes Faith’s writing is charming. It’s like making new best friends and although her stories are emotional and raise serious issues, they are always uplifting too. This felt like a lovely warm hug in a book and added lots of ideas to my imaginary future bookshop.

Meet the Author

Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best selling author. She is a USA Today Bestseller, Irish Times Top Ten and Kindle Number 1 Best Selling writer of nine contemporary fiction novels. Her books have featured as Book Club Favorites, Net Galley Hot Reads and Summer Must Reads. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.

Her new summer read The Guest House By The Sea is out now and it’s a great big welcome back to Ballycove for her readers.

She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.

She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and a sausage-loving Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!

http://www.faithhogan.com

http://www.Facebook/FaithHogan.com

Twitter @gerhogan

Instagram @faithhoganauthor