Women’s History – The Lotus Readers

Best Reads February 2026

Posted on 28th Feb 202627th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Hello all. Welcome to my February favourite reads. It’s been a busy reading month and thankfully I’ve been feeling less foggy and able to read a lot more. I’ve also found more balance in my reading so I’ve been able to read by choice a lot more too. These are the best ones I’ve read this month, a couple still have full reviews outstanding but I’ll tell you a little bit about why I enjoyed them so much.

This beautiful Pride and Prejudice inspired book is an absolute dream to read and felt like being back with old friends. I had always felt that Elizabeth Bennett underestimated her friend Charlotte Lucas and clearly she was a character whose possibilities played on author and comedian Rachel Parris’s mind too. Taken from the point Lizzie rejects Mr Collins’s proposal, the book takes in events from the rest of Austen’s romance and carries on beyond giving us glimpses into events we don’t get to see, such as the Darcy wedding at Pemberley. It’s told from Charlotte’s perspective but with letters from other characters and glimpses into Mr Collins’s past. These give us an insight into his manner and behaviour, while the letters give us a new slant on other characters too. I felt that Charlotte was pragmatic in her choice of husband and found ways to grow within it – sometimes in spite of Mr Collins and other times because of him, rather surprisingly. She has purpose, status and time to educate herself. Even Mr Collins has to admit she has blossomed, but when a spark is lit with a visitor to Rosings will Charlotte pursue the one thing she doesn’t have – romantic love and passion? I loved this and I’m sure many of you will too. It is pitch perfect, funny, sad and incredibly entertaining.

I have raved about Tracy Whitwell’s series following the adventures of Tanzy, actor and reluctant medium. This is the fifth and final instalment so I wanted to savour it. After her eventful trip to Iceland Tanz is back on home soil and soon makes her way back to her childhood home of Newcastle. Both she and her ‘little mam’ have been experiencing dreams about hangings, in Tanz’s case very alarming ones where she has a bag over her head and a noose round her neck. Her visions are powerful and are accompanied by sudden and torrential storms. Knowing she needs some help here, she asks Sheila to come and join her. They’re soon at the very spot where a travelling witch finder condemned several women to death by hanging. Even more alarming than usual, he seems to be able to see Tanz too, coming at her with his ‘pricker’ – the implement he uses to prod his prisoners to see if they bleed. This is toxic masculinity 17th Century style and Tanz is going to know her new Icelandic guides and all her power to defeat it. There’s the usual eccentric characters, including an Amazon woman dressed ‘like a Valkyrie’ who is also researching local history of witches and a ghostly lady called Mags who is full of mischief when it comes to putting men in their place. This is genuinely scary in parts and is based on historical research of the area. It was great to see Tanz back home again and with a case to solve, a love story to wrap up and a surprise that might determine her future, it’s a great finale to this funny and fierce series.

I’ve been able to catch up on some reading this month and I’ve been dying to get to the latest Kate Sawyer. She is now one of my ‘must buy’ authors and this novel just confirms her status on my shelves. Using the structure of family holidays, this book follows four generations of one family and the secrets they carry. Starting post-war with Betty who is at the seaside with her little girl Margaret and husband Jim, but Margaret doesn’t know the secret romance her mother had with the son of a local factory owner. Jim was a pragmatic choice and he’s a good husband despite the facial injuries and terrible memories he carries. Jim is doing well in his job and a few years later they visit the beach with his American colleagues and a teenage Margaret. There something happens that changes the course of this family. The author takes us through the 20th Century, showing how the changing world shapes the experiences of this family. From a beach on the east coast of England, we see holidays in Cornwall, then abroad as Maggie embraces the opportunities of a her husband’s job as a travelling buyer, and when her brother Tommy invests in and up and coming area of Europe. We see how changes in law and culture make some relationships and break others. The women in this novel are exceptionally well-written and the issues they face from infidelity, domestic violence, infertility and the consequences of a more permissive society opening the door for a more open generation than the one before. Throughout, this is a family that tries its hardest to stay together, even when some members are on the other side of the world. I love complex relationship dynamics so this was an absolute joy to read.

This incredible debut by Rachel Canwell deserves all the praise it’s receiving online. In fact she had a books signing at my local bookshop in Lincoln and had sold out within an hour! Her book is set in the south of Lincolnshire, in the fens and a family who live on the banks of the River Nene at Sutton Bridge. The new swing bridge allows them to visit the village and on the opposite bank a port is being built. Next to their home is a small hospital, readied by their father to serve port workers when everything is finished. One dark and disorienting night the family are woken by a rumbling sound and the splash of things hitting the water, but it’s only in the morning that the full devastation can be seen. The bank has collapsed underneath the new port, the family has lost their occupation and one of its sons, who drowned trying to rescue workers. We meet the three women who tell our story in the 1910s, Eleanor and her sister Lily are the last family members living in the house adjacent to the hospital – still empty and unused. Eleanor has fallen in love with John, the local blacksmith but can’t make plans because of her sister Lily. Lily will not leave the family house, in fact she rarely leaves her bedroom. The loss of her twin brother in the port disaster still affects her daily and she will not allow Eleanor to leave her alone in the house. Eleanor’s best friend Clara is married to their older brother Frank and they live in the village with their children. Clara is married to a bully and she sees one in Lily, who passive aggressively controls her sister. War is looming and as a prisoner of war camp is suggested for the old port site tensions within the community rise. With grief joining domestic violence, manipulation and alcohol issues this family is set for an explosive reckoning. I became so attached to these women and their family’s tragic history that I read it so quickly. I will go back and read it again though. Every element – character, setting, plot – is beautifully done and the historical background took me back to a time when my own grandparents would have been working the land and living next to the River Trent further North in the county. This is an excellent debut that had me absorbed completely.

This was an unexpectedly great crime novel set around an auction rooms in Glasgow, a venue where criminal elements mix with rich collectors and eccentric dealers. Rilke is pulled into a difficult situation after his friend Les finishes his prison sentence. When one of the Bowery Auctions regulars, the creepy and questionable Manderson, is killed on the premises it’s only 24 hours till their next auction. In fact Manderson has been stabbed in the eye with one of the antique hat pins they had out for the viewing afternoon. An Edwardian amethyst pin would have had to make its way through a huge hat and into a woman’s long, piled up hair, to keep it secure. Now it’s made its way through Manderson’s eye into his brain and it’s going to take a lot of strength to remove it. Knowing the police will be involved and that Bowery’s will be implicated, perhaps it would be better if it wasn’t obvious that he’s been killed with one of their auction lots. Things get worse when a gangster turns up at Bowery Auctions with Rilke’s mate Les in tow. Ray has a way with a razor and he focuses Rilke with a swipe to Les’s face. Rilke must now investigate who killed Manderson in just ten days or Les will pay the consequences. His investigations will take him to an old school where many ex-pupils have reported sexual abuse, to a brothel named after a questionable film and a girl called Chloe who may or may not be controlled by her boyfriend, Dickie Bird. Will he find the answers that will save Les? More to the point, are the answers to be found outside Glasgow or a lot closer to home? Glasgow is a city that doesn’t hide its darker quarters or episodes in its history and we see them here from pubs to brothels and a particularly creepy old school. The author brings in modern concerns around women using Only Fans and other internet sex work to make ends meet. Can it ever be a feminist thing? There are also issues around coercive control and manipulation, but as Rilke learns it’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick. There’s a familiar jaded feeling around these issues and a knowledge that no matter what’s brought to light, some people will always get away with it. This is a gritty thriller with a streak of humour and some fantastic characters. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

Finally this month I’m recommending this brilliant thriller from Tana French, the third in a series featuring ex- Chicago cop Cal and his new life in the small Irish village of Ardnakelty. This is such an atmospheric read that manages to feel isolated, but suffocating at the same time. Cal and his fiancée Lena, who was born here, try to keep out of any local gossip or feuding. However, when young teenager Rachel goes missing one night in a storm both Cal and his woodworking protoge Trey go looking for her. She’s found in the river, after setting out to meet her boyfriend Eugene Moynihan at the bridge. She appears to have drowned but Eugene claims not to have made the arrangement to meet in such terrible weather and when the autopsy comes back it reports that Rachel had swallowed anti-freeze. Is this an accident or suicide. Cal and Lena suspect foul play and with Lena being the last person to see Rachel, staying out of this might not be possible. When Cal appears to side with his neighbour Mart against the Moynihan family tensions rise and Tommy Moynihan, family patriarch, starts to show just how much of Ardnakelty he holds in his power. This is a complex mystery, with risky allegiances and terrible consequences. The Irish dialogue is so beautifully written and there are moments of laugh out loud humour to dispel the tension. This was an incredibly good thriller with plenty of twists and a fascinating central character too.

Here’s a selection from my March tbr:

Netgalley

Introducing Mrs Collins by Rachel Parris

Posted on 25th Feb 202625th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Charlotte Lucas has never been a romantic. Practical to a fault, she accepted Mr Collins’s proposal with clear eyes and a steady heart, trading passion for security. Life at Hunsford Parsonage may be quiet and predictable, but it is hers to manage – and she’s determined to make the best of it, whatever Elizabeth Bennet may think.

That is, until an unexpected guest at Rosings Park turns Charlotte’s careful world on its head. He sees her, challenges her – and a spark is lit. But true contentment is not only about who you choose to love, but who you choose to be. For the first time, she wonders: has playing by the rules kept her on the sidelines of her own life?

It is a truth, universally acknowledged that a sick woman in bad humour will be revived in the company of a witty novel…

This is the Pride and Prejudice inspired novel I’ve been waiting for and it came at the perfect time, when I’ve been feeling very unwell and was stuck in bed. I read for two days between sleeping and I swear it kept me sane. I always felt that Lizzie Bennett underestimated her friend Charlotte and I wondered what happened to her and Mr Collins in the future. It’s a great reminder that we only see a novel’s events through the gaze of our narrator and central character. The same events, viewed from a different perspective, bring a more balanced and multi-faceted view of what happened in the novel and its characters. The events of Parris’s novel take place during and after Pride and Prejudice, from the point that Lizzie rejects Mr Collins proposal. A decision that pleases her father but sends her mother into conniptions! Lizzie’s choice means that once Mr Bennett dies, Mrs Bennett and all of her daughters are at the mercy of Mr Collins, the male heir. Whoever he chooses to marry will become mistress of the Bennett’s home Longbourne. Charlotte Lucas is our focus, Lizzie’s best friend and now the recipient of Mr Collins’s attentions. The author has added inserts from the past, adding depth and insight to both Charlotte and Mr Collins’s characters as adults. We see events that we have only imagined, like the Darcy’s wedding at Pemberley and its ensuing drama. However we also see Charlotte settle into the everyday of married life, with all its strangeness and frustrations. I left Pride and Prejudice a little worried about Charlotte, even though the way she does talk about life at the parsonage with humour and optimism when Lizzie visits. So this story of her growing relationships, her new home and her dissatisfactions with her new life is so welcome. What she misses most is passion, but if it arose would she be able to resist it?

Charlotte is viewed with pity by the Bennetts, apart from Mrs Bennett who is wailing that she will be the mistress of their beloved home. I felt like Charlotte knows her prospects are few. She’s witty and fun, but she knows she doesn’t have the charm and looks of Lizzie. She is someone who people get to know slowly and hasn’t reached her full potential yet. Mr Collins was always a pragmatic choice, but here I could also see it as a mature and confident choice. The Bennetts may see Mr Collins as ridiculous and in some ways he is, but Charlotte doesn’t see her worth as solely defined by the man she chooses to marry. He may be thought of as silly, but that doesn’t mean she is. Also, as Mrs Collins she has a beautiful home and garden, a steady income and a benefactor in Lady Catherine de Bourgh. As a married woman she has status and purpose, going out to visit sick parishioners and keeping the home running smoothly. While Mr Collins is busy Charlotte spends her hours in her library continuing to educate herself, she tends her garden and she practises her piano at Rosings. Charlotte is able to be happy and content in her own company, separate from Mr Collins’s anxieties and emotions. In this light we also see Lizzie differently, perhaps even as a little spoiled. As we see in this book, Mr and Mrs Bennett are the architects of their daughter’s misfortunes and their attitudes are clear in two crucial letters they send to the parsonage. Darcy’s assessment of the family, unwisely passed on to Lizzie during his first proposal, is absolutely correct. Mr and Mrs Bennett’s leniency with their younger daughter’s behaviour allows a window for Mr Wickham to connect with the foolish Lydia. It’s their behaviour that prompts both Darcy and Caroline Bingley to warn Mr Bingley away from his attachment to Jane. In letters to both Charlotte and Mrs Collins, the Bennett parents show they are both fierce in the defence of their daughters but spiteful towards the recipients. Mr Bennett calls Lydia unwise, but at least not judgmental – a criticism that Mr Collins perhaps deserves. However, in a letter to Charlotte Mrs Bennett shows awful spite in an unnecessary postscript:

“I saw your Maria this week at church and she is become such a beauty! What a pleasant girl – always with a smile and a manner that puts one at ease. You would not think you were sisters.”

However, I did come away with some forgiveness for Mrs Bennett’s view that Lizzie might have thought of her mother and sisters when she refused Mr Collins, because now they would surely lose their home. It’s clear that Mr Bennett has little respect for his wife and for good reason on some occasions. However, he does favour Lizzie and perhaps his treatment of her has led to Lizzie thinking she has better prospects than she does. Luckily fate brings her Darcy but I did understand Charlotte for thinking that luck just seems to fall into her friend’s lap.

I felt like Charlotte blossomed in her new environment and that sometimes it is because of Mr Collins not despite him. If nothing else he shows kindness and understanding. The vignettes of his childhood show a sad history that goes some way to understanding his character better. However, it is a connection that she never expected that seems to bring out a new side to Charlotte. An unexpected visitor to Rosings Park brings her friendship and an affinity she never expected, not to mention a passionate spark. I loved the point in the novel when Mr Collins has both a revelation about his wife and is genuinely awe inspired by her. As she plays a piece on the piano for a gathering at Rosings, Mr Collins sees his wife anew:

“This poised assertive woman was a vision, undaunted by entertaining a room of high-born people in a house such as this with the talent he had no idea she possessed […] she was splendid and her splendour shook the foundation of his peace of mind. Whereas another man might have felt only pride in his wife, for Collins, this feeling was mixed with something much more disquieting. She is beyond me: what he felt was I will not be able to keep her.”

This is a worry born of never being enough for his father, who tried to change him by whatever means necessary. I felt the author didn’t excuse all of his failings, but explained what was behind them. The narrative voice is so incredibly good that this didn’t feel like a stranger telling me about these characters I knew very well. It felt like a continuation; a meeting with old friends. Of course the author does bring some of our modern thinking to the story, otherwise we wouldn’t be hearing about Mr Collins’s childhood – a psychological aspect to character we wouldn’t perhaps expect in a book pre-Freud. I won’t touch on Charlotte’s eventual fate but I will say that Mr Collins definitely has a part in it. Maybe not in the most romantic sense, but sometimes there’s a kind of love in duty and honour. I love Rachel Parris’s humour and there’s plenty of that here, with the tone and the wit feeling positively Austen-esque. I could tell by how well each character was drawn that the author loved her books and wanted to do them justice. I think she has.

Meet the Author

Rachel Parris is a BAFTA-nominated comedian, musician, actor and improvisor, best known for her viral segments on The Mash Report and Late Night Mash, which have garnered over 100 million views. Her TV appearances include Live at the Apollo, Would I Lie to You?, QI and Mock the Week, and she is a regular guest on Radio 4’s The Now Show and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. She co-hosts the popular podcast How Was It for You? with her husband Marcus Brigstocke. Rachel also wrote and presented a Jane Austen comedy programme, Austensibly Feminist, about how to view Jane Austen as modern feminists. Rachel is a founding member of the critically acclaimed improv comedy group Austentatious, in which the all-star cast invent a play based on a title suggestion from the audience. As a touring comedian she has performed her award-winning musical comedy to sell-out audiences across the UK.

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The Witch Finder by Tracy Whitwell

Posted on 21st Feb 202621st Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

This is the fifth and final installment in the hilarious Accidental Medium series featuring Tanz, who with the help of the dead, has become an unwilling crime-solver.

When Tanz returns to her hometown in Newcastle, she comes face-to-face with dark, ancestral secrets lurking in its shadows. Haunted by chilling visions of the witch-trials, a voice from the past warns her, You’re the one. Burn it, chosen one. As a sinister figure threatens to ruin everything she’s built for herself, Tanz must embrace her connection to the dead to uncover her destiny.

With everything on the line, Tanz finds herself entangled in a web of folklore, mystery and imminent danger. Elements collide as the echoes of history demand intervention and new relationships entwine in her mystical journey. Tanz must wield courage against paranormal forces and listen to old and new allies in order to prevent ominous threats from consuming her world.

Will Tanz unravel the mysteries surrounding the witch pricker and her own lineage in time, or will she fall prey to the darkness that stalks her?

I love a good witch story and the Accidental Medium books have been a brilliant series from Tracy Whitwell. So much so that I’m really sad this is the last set of adventures for our titular accidental medium Tanzy. I love the combination of magical and ghostly goings on with our down to earth and sweary Geordie witch. This time the atmosphere is slightly different as we’re delving into the history of witches in Tanz’s home town of Newcastle. After returning from her exciting and romantic exploits in Iceland, she takes a worried call from her ‘little mam’ who has had strange and unsettling dreams about hangings. As usual Tanz tries not to alarm her mam because she isn’t comfortable with the family gift, but Tanz has also had similar dreams of feeling a bag over her head and a noose around her neck. She gets straight into the car and drives home and not a moment too soon since someone has thrown a dead hare over her parent’s garden wall warning them away, but from what? Newcastle is a lovely city and I enjoyed seeing Tanz in her own environment. She soon calls her friend Sheila to join her and tries to find out as much as she can about the city’s history with witches. As a contrast to the friendliness of people and the buzz of a lively city, Tanz starts to notice an atmosphere change heralding one of her visions. She notices storm clouds suddenly gathering and rain lashing down, especially when she’s confronted with the figure of the witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins. More disturbingly, he seems to be able to see Tanzy too and tries to attack her with his ‘pricker’ – the implement he uses to test whether marks on a witch’s skin bleed or not. In one terrifying scene he makes a swipe for the window of a tearoom leaving a scratch down the glass and down Tanzy’s cheek. As they research Hopkins in the library, Tanzy finds out that he identified several witches who were all hanged together on the common. She can hear Hopkins’s hatred of women and there were definite parallels with the current political situation around the Epstein files and Andrew Tate.

“All of them are witches, these sly cows with their lies and their ‘ways’. Once they’ve bred we should hang ‘em all. More peace for us”.

Tanzy feels more powerful than ever after her trip and her meeting with the Icelandic magical folk, there’s also the matter of Thor who it’s quite clear she’s fallen in love with. Her visions are so incredibly vivid and they seem to tire her more easily. In fact she collapses on the common at one point and ends up covered in mud. Tanz feels the emotions of the witches who’ve been imprisoned for a long time, broken down by lack of food and unsanitary conditions, not to mention the way they’ve been treated by the male guards. Hopkins was being paid ‘by the witch’ so it’s in his interest to find as many as possible. Tanz and Sheila soon realise that his pricker is false, with a needle that disappears inside the shaft when he uses it, leaving no marks on the woman and branded her a witch. In her usual frank language Tanz brands him ‘ a cunt and a shithouse’ which made me laugh out loud. When she’s not incensed, Tanzy is delightfully warm and open, making friends with a couple who own a small bar near the hotel and an Amazon woman called Lydia who definitely dresses like she enjoys taking up space! She is also connected to the mass hangings and has been researching her family tree and local witches at the library for years. There is also a new ghostly friend, a hooded lady called Mags who is an absolute mischief and brings some comic relief between the most serious scenes. In the bar, Mags terrorises a cocky young man who is manipulating his shy girlfriend by moving his drink and pulling his chair away. She proves very useful and doesn’t leave Tanz’s side until the spiritual warfare is over.

I did really worry for Tanz this time, especially when Sheila is laid low by a cold and can’t accompany her. Tanz knows she needs to be on her guard, but the plight of these women have left her feeling furious constantly. There will be a final showdown and with this being our last adventure I was on tenterhooks wondering whether Tanzy would come through okay. While I love all the characters in the book she is the magic spell of this series. Her earthiness and Northern wit balance out the more ‘woowoo’ aspects of her life and I wondered if it was time for her to return home? Somehow, despite nothing being resolved between them, Tanz also seems quite settled in her feelings for Thor and the more settled she is the more powerful she seems. As she’s offered a completely unexpected opportunity I really hoped she would take it. I recommend this whole series to anyone who enjoys a touch of the supernatural with a side order of history and realism. I’m going to miss Tanzy hugely but I’m excited for what this author might do next too.

Out now from Pan MacMillan

Meet the Author

Tracy Whitwell was born, brought up and educated in the north-east of England. She wrote plays and short stories

from an early age, then moved to London where she became a busy actress on stage and screen. After having her son, she wound down the acting to concentrate on writing full time. Many projects followed until she finally found the courage to write the first in her Accidental Medium series, a work of fiction based on a whole heap of crazy truth. Apart from the series, Tracy has written novels in several other genres and also writes mini self-help books as the Sweary Witch.

Tracy is nothing like her lead character Tanz in The Accidental Medium. (This is a lie.)

Random Things Tours

Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer

Posted on 19th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Nova Scotia 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her. Until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.

Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.

Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom – and of love…

Eleanor Shearer tells stories about fictional people in situations I didn’t even know existed and then makes me root for them so hard that I cry real tears. Cora is our central character and we see everything through her eyes, so it’s no surprise I felt close to her. Cora is so vulnerable and thoughtful. She cares for her unusual ‘family’ – Leah who has brought her up and been a substitute mother and Silas and young Ben who’s still a young boy. It’s makeshift but it’s the only family she has known, ever since Leah found her as a baby. They are ‘maroons’, escaped slaves from Jamaica who settled in Nova Scotia, Canada. Many maroons negotiated peace treaties with the British, but part of that treaty forced them to aid the British in capturing any new runaways. However, Agnes’s freedom is more precarious. She’s out in the forest alone, except for her dog Patience, and it’s a harsh existence with the added fear of discovery. I’m not sure Cora fully understands that her presence and connection to the Maroons settlement adds to that anxiety and doubles her chance of discovery. Cora isn’t hardened to winter in the forest and hasn’t had to hone her survival instincts in the way Agnes has. Something she shows by getting into scrapes in the snow, saved by the ever present Patience. There are different types of freedom in terms of gender and sexuality too. Cora knows that Silas has an expectation that they will be together one day and so far she has avoided this. However, it is there in every confrontation they have; the fear of his resentment and the threat of sexual violence is ever present. Cora doesn’t question her sexuality, she just knows she loves Agnes. Will they have the freedom to be together?

The environment is an incredibly strong part of this story and here the author excels in creating a Nova Scotia that’s harsh but exceptionally beautiful. I found the time Cora spends in the forest incredibly peaceful to read, the animals, the ice and the frosted trees have a romance, a poetry about them. Yet she doesn’t hide the raw reality of living in it. The girls must trap animals, although Cora frees a white hare unable to kill such a beautiful and mystical creature however hungry they may be. One of my favourite scenes is when Agnes takes Cora out on a boat to visit the whales who appear for them as if by magic. As they sit among these huge creatures one of them lifts their head and looks directly at Agnes and she feels seen for the first time in her life. Not as a woman, or a slave, or a Maroon. Just as Cora, another living being. There are also moments where Mother Nature shows its bite and when Cora falls through the ice I was holding my breath. The suspense of those moments are brilliantly pitched and show us that Agnes’s lifestyle may have magical moments, but it can be lethal.

I love that Eleanor writes people back into history, we can read the historical facts about settled slaves in Canada but she brings their experiences to life in a way that hits the emotions and helps us to understand. We’re also reminded by Cora that women have choices, sometimes marriage is just another form of slavery. It’s something she’s keen to avoid, even if the offer came from a more loving and kind man like her friend Thursday. She knows herself enough to know it is not for her and she’s not willing to sacrifice herself. Luckily, Thursday is a loyal friend and will help Cora without imposing conditions. When Cora finds out the truth about where she comes from, secrets that have been held for years come flooding out and threaten everything that Cora has known about herself. When Agnes faces a similar reckoning it threatens everything in their future. I was emotional about the little details the author puts into her book such as the braiding of Cora’s hair being the only moment where they’re both present and the ‘love can flow between them unimpeded’. Cora’s loss of her sister also hangs over her and I loved the nature metaphors she uses to express those emotions:

“Cora cannot stop thinking of her life like a tree, with the branches that split and split again until you reach the highest […] that there’s somewhere, the branches not taken – the world where she stayed with Elsy and Elsy would still be living.”

However, in everything that happens, one loss hit me the hardest and actually brought me to tears. I loved the still moments created, where Cora learned to be in nature. Where they are both present and entirely in the moment. The fireflies are a symbol for Agnes and Cora, in that they are glowing in the darkest and coldest circumstances. Cora and Agnes have a bond that flourishes where many things don’t survive, they are extraordinary like fireflies in winter.

Out from Headline Review on 10th February

Meet the Author

Eleanor Shearer is a mixed race writer from the UK. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate on the coast of Kent, so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea.

As the granddaughter of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK as part of the Windrush Generation, Eleanor has always been drawn to Caribbean history. Her first novel, RIVER SING ME HOME (Headline, UK & Berkley, USA) is inspired by the true stories of the brave woman who went looking for their stolen children after the abolition of slavery in 1834. The novel draws on her time spent in the Caribbean, visiting family in St Lucia and Barbados. It was also informed by her Master’s degree in Politics, where she focused on how slavery is remembered on the islands today.

Her second novel, FIREFLIES IN WINTER, is a love story set in the snow-covered wilderness of Nova Scotia in the 1790s. When Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, glimpses a strange figure in the forest, she is increasingly drawn into the frozen woods. She meets Agnes, who is on the run from her former life. As the two women grow closer, they learn more about love, survival and the price of freedom.

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Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell

Posted on 16th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

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.

The atmosphere in this story perfectly captures the strange isolated feel of Lincolnshire’s fens. I’m Lincolnshire born and bred, further north than the fens but I know the area. It’s a flat, almost featureless place with dykes that drain the fields and the constant smell of vegetable crops in the air. The novel’s focus is on the area of Sutton Bridge, a village with a famous swing bridge built in 1897 across the River Nene. On one bank, an area of several acres is home to a building site where a port is being built and on the other is a hospital, built to service the workers of the port area. Alongside it is the home of the family who will run it. The author’s family waited for many years, ready to run their hospital, but this is not their story. The author opens with a strange and disorienting scene where a family are disturbed by noises at night and venture out in the pitch dark. As they stand on the bank, theres a loud rumble and the sound of heavy things hitting the water. The family can’t see anything, but in the light it’s clear that all their hopes for a future working alongside the port are gone. The bank on the far side has collapsed in the night, even worse one of their sons is missing, presumed drowned, while helping to look for workers. As we join them in 1910 only two sisters remain on the hospital side of the bank, Lily who has barely moved beyond the threshold since her twin drowned and Eleanor who tends to Lily, their garden and the hospital. Their other sibling, Frank, lives down in the village with his wife Clara and their children. It is the three women – Eleanor, Clara and Lily – who narrate our story.

I felt so strongly about these characters, especially Clara and Eleanor who have always been friends. It soon becomes clear that both are in a similar position. Eleanor is at the mercy of Lily’s health and her moods. She claims to be unable to leave her room and hates to be left alone in the house. Despite being so isolated Eleanor has met and fallen in love with a young man called John who has taken over the village’s smithy. How can she ever plan a future with him if she’s unable to leave the house? Similarly, Eleanor’s friend Clara is at the mercy of husband Frank’s moods and how much he’s had to drink. One of the book’s opening chapters follows the couple and their children on a train to the coast. However, the train hasn’t even left the station and Frank is already belligerent. The author writes this beautifully, with Clara’s hopes for one day of freedom as a family dwindling by the moment. The tension rises as Clara desperately tries to quiet the children, holding herself tightly, too terrified to move and incur his anger. Luckily, his behaviour draws young men from the next carriage and Clara leaves him to fight his own battles. The sudden freedom she and the children have is blissful, laughing as they run down to the sea, removing shoes and socks to jump in the waves. Clara knows her friend Eleanor is under equal pressure, because under a quiet and timid exterior Lily has a core of steel. While Eleanor feels sorry for Lily, trying to respect her grief and many physical symptoms, Clara lives with a bully and she sees beyond Lily’s quiet and apparent shyness, recognising them as control and emotional blackmail. Her interventions at the house, forcing Lily into activity, almost made me laugh. Clara isn’t emotionally attached to Lily so can’t be bullied. This dynamic brings enough tension but soon WW1 will cut a swathe through the men of the village bringing fear and loss in its wake.

Lily made me furious. Her sly nature is infuriating, always listening where she shouldn’t be and snooping in other people’s things. She seems to struggle with empathy, unable to see what her actions might do to others. Despite keeping her own artefacts of a time when the family were whole, she doesn’t recognise other people’s attachment to keepsakes. She’s quite happy to destroy things if she can’t have her way. John is unsure what to do in order to help Eleanor, if they’re to have a future things must change, but how to bring that about without making things worse? It may not be possible for Eleanor to sever her ties as her sister’s carer. Maybe he will have to come to them and get to know Lily. He doesn’t want Eleanor to think he doesn’t care about her sister, but equally he needs Lily to understand that he’s going to be in Eleanor’s life, whatever that takes. However, when pushed, Lily can be incredibly spiteful and destructive. It’s this selfish streak that sees her making reckless and desperate choices. The only times when we see the girl in Eleanor is when she’s with Clara and their shared history gives us all those elements of female friendship that mean so much – the shared jokes and memories, but also the support both physical and emotional. Eleanor may be in love but it’s Clara who fully knows her and will always hold her up when she can’t support herself. All of these women are trapped: Lily by her memories and fears, Clara by her marriage and Eleanor by Lily and the empty hospital she continues to maintain to her father’s standards. It’s almost a shrine to the dreams of those they’ve lost. Then there’s the isolation of the fen, trapped between salt marsh and the river.

War brings different experiences for Clara and Eleanor, especially when Frank joins up early. It’s like spring comes to Clara’s house because the children can play and make noise, she can run the house in a more relaxed way. She can pop over to sit with Lily giving John and Eleanor some freedom too. John’s is a reserved occupation so he doesn’t have to join up straight away. However, these golden times are short lived. It isn’t long before injury, shell shock and even death reach the village and it’s very hard for any of the women to understand their husband’s or brother’s experiences. Through the male characters we see every consequence of fighting for your country. Meanwhile the women are trying to produce food and help on the land. Even to this day, the fen area of the county still produces huge amounts of vegetable produce, as well as potatoes and flowers. To keep crops growing the farmers need labourers and one solution comes in the form of a prisoner of war camp, situated on the site of the old port, directly opposite Eleanor and Lily. The POWs are mainly German soldiers, who will bunk in cabins and work the fields. The author beautifully shows the tensions between prisoners and those men who’ve been fighting overseas. As a dreaded black edged letter arrives, grief now joins domestic violence, manipulation and alcohol issues. This family is set for an explosive reckoning. I became so attached to these women and their family’s tragic history that I read it so quickly. I already know I will go back and read it again though. Every element – character, setting, plot – is beautifully done and the historical background took me back to a time when my own grandparents would have been working the land and living next to the River Trent further north in the county. This is an excellent debut from Rachel Canwell that had me utterly absorbed and feeling every emotion alongside her characters.

Out now from Northodox Press

Meet the Author

For those close by Rachel will be appearing at Lindum Books on the Bailgate in Lincoln on Saturday 21st Feb from 10.30am

https://www.visitlincoln.com/event/author-shop-signing-rachel-canwell%3B-paper-sisters/104373101/

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Books Inspired by Jane Eyre

Posted on 4th Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

Like many English Literature students, Jane Eyre remains one of my favourite books and it has inspired writers ever since its publication in 1847. I first read it at ten years old and for me it was a romantic ghost story, read alongside the 1980s BBC series. As one of my first reads at university I could see how the novel contained aspects of everything I needed to learn on my 19th Century module: class, colonialism, morality, gender, work, women and much more. It also defies genre, with the potential to be classified as a mystery, romance, gothic fiction, Bildungsroman and historical fiction. I think this is what helps the novel endure. Its flexibility allows it to appeal to different generations for very different reasons. Each of this authors were inspired to use those multiple themes to shape a novel around Charlotte Brontẽ’s work.

My reading of the novel has definitely changed over the years. University opened up the novel for me as much more than the ghost story I’d enjoyed as a child. It brought colonialism into my mind for the first time, feminism and autonomy. It made me think more about the role of governess as a liminal figure in the household – she is an employee but doesn’t sleep or eat where the domestic staff do, she is unmarried and independent, earning her own money and making her own choices about it. I think it’s easy for a reader to identify with Jane, whether it’s the bullied and child trying to read behind the curtain or terrified by the Red Room. The girl scapegoated at school as ‘too passionate’ and a little bit defiant too. The young woman falling in love with an older man who isn’t what he seems, making decisions about whether to be in the role of mistress. All of these aspects are ripe for fictional updates and retellings. Bringing the book bang up to date there are aspects of manipulation and coercive control in Rochester’s use of Blanche Ingram and dressing up as a fortune teller to influence Jane’s thoughts. We can look at femininity through Bertha Mason, the madwoman in the attic and the comparison of Jane as everything she supposedly isn’t – modest, compliant, emotionally stable and moral. This is especially important in light of public figures like the Tate brothers who want to control how women behave and denigrate those who don’t fit their ideal. The nanny or governess has become a staple of modern thrillers because of their intimacy with the family they work for, often living in close quarters and becoming close emotionally. That is the book’s enduring appeal, that we can always look at it through the lens of today and find something new. One of my specific interests in the novel is mental health and who is in control of what constitutes instability. I’m also interested in the disability aspect of the novel and what it is about Rochester’s disabilities towards the end of the novel that brings some equality between him and Jane. Here I’ve gathered just a few of the novels that are inspired by the novel in very different ways.

Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness, and her husband into the arms of another novel’s heroine. Rhys shows us why Antoinette isn’t just the antithesis of the quiet and composed Jane Eyre. Her work evokes thoughts around female sexuality and whether sexual enjoyment or the woman’s initiation of sexual activity is what Rochester rejects in his wife. Is it really the history of madness in her family or is it the ‘Creole’ aspect of Antoinette’s heritage? Is she insane or furious about his rejection, withdrawal from and later imprisonment of her that aroused violent tendencies? This is a classic study of betrayal, a seminal work of postcolonial literature and is Jean Rhys’s brief, but beautiful masterpiece.

Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris, where she began writing and was ‘discovered’ by Ford Madox Ford. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their time and only modestly successful. From 1939 (when Good Morning, Midnight was written) onwards she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with her account of Jane Eyre’s Bertha Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea, in 1966.

He did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca. . .

Everyone knows that Maxim de Winter was obsessed with his glamorous wife – and devastated by her tragic death. So when he proposes to a shy, anxious young woman after a whirlwind meeting in the South of France, no one is more surprised than the new bride herself. But when they reach Manderley, his beautiful, isolated Cornish mansion, the second Mrs de Winter begins to realise that every inch of her new home – and everyone in it – still belongs to Rebecca.

Daphne du Maurier’s thriller has Jane Eyre in it’s DNA, especially when it comes to it’s heroines: the dark and delicious vamp Rebecca who we never see and the quiet, awkward and compliant second wife who is never named. Here though, instead of a housekeeper, we get the gothic masterpiece that is Mrs Danvers, once Rebecca’s maid and now the housekeeper of Maxim de Winter’s stately home on the Cornish coast, Manderley. Maxim has chosen this new, much younger and adoring wife without any thought as to whether she has the knowledge or the qualities to run a great house. She doesn’t even have the confidence to ‘leave it all to Danny‘ as he tells her. He has the detachment of the upper classes who are so privileged they don’t care if they’re rude, ignorant or leave the staff to pick up after them. His new wife however can’t give orders and ends up trying to fit into the routine of her predecessor only to be reminded of her at every turn. Here, the madwoman is in the attic of the mind, ever present and even more intimidating in the imagination. There is also the creepy Mrs Danvers, slowly pressuring the new bride, showing her deficiencies as a mistress to Manderley and hinting at the sexual chemistry between Rebecca and Maxim. This is an incredible update of the classic, bringing in psychological aspects from the age of Freud and an addictive suspense that culminates in that bright glow of fire in the Cornish dawn.

It is 1957. As Daphne du Maurier wanders alone through her remote mansion on the Cornish coast, she is haunted by thoughts of her failing marriage and the legendary heroine of her most famous novel, Rebecca, who now seems close at hand.Seeking distraction, she becomes fascinated by Branwell, the reprobate brother of the Brontë sisters, and begins a correspondence with the enigmatic scholar Alex Symington in which truth and fiction combine.

Meanwhile, in present day London, a lonely young woman struggles with her thesis on du Maurier and the Brontës and finds herself retreating from her distant husband into a fifty-year-old literary mystery. This is a subtle update of the themes of Jane Eyre in a time when a second wife isn’t an unusual and dealing with issues like blended families and the presence of ex-wives is an everyday occurrence. However, we have the clear Jane Eyre figure still in our PhD student, quiet and unassuming but psychologically dependent on her husband who still holds a fascination for the more colourful and bohemian poetess who was his first wife. It also delves beautifully into the psychology of Daphne Du Maurier, who sealed her journals for fifty years after her death. We now know she suffered mental abuse from her father, an actor whose fascination with younger actresses derailed his marriage and perhaps provides the blueprint for the older romantic figure of Max de Winter, an updated version of Edward Rochester. There is an incredible amount of research in this book that even goes back to the Brontë’s and the psychological genesis of their writing. The more you know about them and Daphne du Maurier, the more you will enjoy this one.

1852. When Margaret Lennox, a young widow, is offered a position as governess at Hartwood Hall, she quickly accepts, hoping this isolated country house will allow her to leave the past behind. But she soon feels there’s something odd about Hartwood: strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and a wing of the house no one uses.

Why do the locals eye her employer, widowed Mrs Evesham, with suspicion? What is hidden in the abandoned East Wing? Who are the strangers coming and going under darkness? Hartwood Hall conceals mysteries, perhaps even danger. Margaret is certain that everyone here has something to hide, and as her own past threatens to catch up with her, she must learn to trust her instincts before it’s too late?

This is a brilliant example of the ‘gothic governess’ novel as I like to call them and brings an elements of modern preoccupations like gender and sexuality to the 19th Century novel. It begins with a du Maurier style opening of a winding drive and a forbidding house that local people like to avoid. When her charge is ill, Margaret is disturbed that locals won’t come near the hall and is more puzzled by the sudden presence of Miss Davis, a nurse who turns up at the house after hearing a child was unwell at the hall. After experiencing lights in a forbidden part of the house and seeing the unease Mrs Evesham has about people knowing their business, Margaret knows there’s a mystery here but is unsure exactly what it is. Because it’s a mystery I can’t say more, but I loved how this story unfolds and what it means for the women involved.

1867. On a dark and chilling night Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.

It is the start of a journey into a world of abandoned children, unexplained occurrences and terrifying experiences which Eliza will have to overcome if she is to survive the secrets that lie within Gaudlin’s walls. This is such a gothic novel that it could almost be a parody but what saves it is Eliza herself, arguably a rather more modern governess than we would expect in 1867. curiosity, her determination and her rational analysis of her situation. Eliza is no hysterical heroine of a sensitive disposition, and her self-awareness is not just important to her handling of the mystery that surrounds Gaudlin, but also entertaining. Her independence, dry wit and forward-thinking views on certain social issues, if not necessarily likely for a woman living in the 1860s, elevate her above the average Victorian Gothic female protagonist, and her innate kindness is also an endearing counterpoint to her impressive courage. The children are also much more than the standard creepy kids of many a horror story, and the different ways in which they each deal with the challenges of their situation are fascinating and credible.

In a modern and twisty retelling of Jane Eyre, a young woman must question everything she thinks she knows about love, loyalty, and murder.

Jane has lost everything: job, mother, relationship, even her home. A friend calls to offer an unusual deal―a cottage above the crashing surf of Big Sur on the estate of his employer, Evan Rochester. In return, Jane will tutor his teenage daughter. She accepts.

But nothing is quite as it seems at the Rochester estate. Though he’s been accused of murdering his glamorous and troubled wife, Evan Rochester insists she drowned herself. Jane is skeptical, but she still finds herself falling for the brilliant and secretive entrepreneur and growing close to his daughter.

And yet her deepening feelings for Evan can’t disguise dark suspicions aroused when a ghostly presence repeatedly appears in the night’s mist and fog. Jane embarks on an intense search for answers and uncovers evidence that soon puts Evan’s innocence into question. She’s determined to discover what really happened that fateful night, but what will the truth cost her?

Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.

There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave’s MR Big. Acheron Hades has been kidnapping certain characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn’t easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Perhaps today just isn’t going to be Thursday’s day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again. This is such an inventive novel, part sci-fi and part detective novel with all the post-modern intertextuality you could want. Thursday is such an appealing heroine, with a detective’s flair and a keen nose for the bad guy – possibly due to her criminal father. We slip into various different worlds before finding ourselves back on that flaming roof at Thornfield Hall. Whimsical and utterly brilliant.

Uncover the secrets of Edward Fairfax Rochester, the beloved, enigmatic hero of Jane Eyre, as he tells his story for the first time in Mr Rochester, Sarah Shoemaker’s gorgeous retelling of one of the most romantic stories in literature.

On his eighth birthday, Edward is banished from his beloved Thornfield Hall to learn his place in life. His journey eventually takes him to Jamaica where, as a young man, he becomes entangled with an enticing heiress and makes a choice that will haunt him. It is only when he finally returns home and encounters one stubborn, plain, young governess, that Edward can see any chance of redemption – and love. Rich and vibrant, Edward’s evolution from tender-hearted child to Charlotte Bronte’s passionately tormented hero will completely, deliciously, and forever change how we read and remember Jane Eyre. Sarah Shoemaker takes us back to a world before Jane Eyre, using a 19th Century style in keeping with its source material. Most of the book is Edward Rochester’s early life, giving us a background that makes sense of the moody and changeable man we see in the original novel. His background is dogged by loss, including the death of his mother at an early age. We see with each loss how isolated he feels so that when he is betrayed by family into a marriage with the unknown Bertha Mason she becomes all he has, but everything he didn’t want. When Jane finally appears the stage is set for events at Thornfield but through his eyes. The tragedy is that the angel he sees before him is out of reach. Given access to his inner voice we can see how much he agonises over his feelings and whether to act, making sense of his odd hot and cold behaviour towards her. This book shines a new light on this story and is a definite must read for lovers of Jane Eyre.

What the heart desires, the house destroys…

Andromeda is a debtera – an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. She would be hired, that is, if her mentor hadn’t thrown her out before she could earn her license. Now her only hope is to find a Patron – a rich, well-connected individual who will vouch for her abilities.

When a handsome heir named Magnus reaches out to hire her, she takes the job without question. Never mind that he’s rude and eccentric, that the contract comes with outlandish rules, and that the many previous debteras had quit before her. If Andromeda wants to earn a living, she has no choice. But this is a job like no other, and Magnus is hiding far more than she has been trained for. Death is the likely outcome if she stays, the reason every debtera before her quit. But leaving Magnus to live out his curse isn’t an option because, heaven help her, she’s fallen for him.

This is an unexpectedly romantic debut from Lauren Blackwood that has been both an Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon book club choice. It has beautiful imagery and its Ethiopian setting gave me background on a country mainly known for famine (especially for this child of the 1980s). The mythology is fascinating and brings an even spookier aspect to the story. This is a very loose retelling of Jane Eyre, with the emphasis on the gothic elements and reminding us what a Beauty and the Beast story this is. The romance develops a little too quickly for me, but there’s a great banter between the central characters that feels true to the original pair. It also sticks quite firmly to the premise that he is the one being rescued. An interesting addition for the Jane Eyre fan, but not a faithful retelling.

A collection of short stories celebrating Charlotte Brontë, published in the year of her bicentenary and stemming from the now immortal words from her great work Jane Eyre.

The twenty-one stories in Reader, I Married Him – one of the most celebrated lines in fiction – are inspired by Jane Eyre and shaped by its perennially fascinating themes of love, compromise and self-determination. A bohemian wedding party takes an unexpected turn for the bride and her daughter; a family trip to a Texan waterpark prompts a life-changing decision; Grace Poole defends Bertha Mason and calls the general opinion of Jane Eyre into question. Mr Rochester reveals a long-kept secret in “Reader, She Married Me”, and “The Mirror” boldly imagines Jane’s married life after the novel ends. A new mother encounters an old lover after her daily swim and inexplicably lies to him, and a fitness instructor teaches teenage boys how to handle a pit bull terrier by telling them Jane Eyre’s story.

Edited by the fantastic Tracy Chevalier, this collection brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Netgalley

The House of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare

Posted on 4th Feb 20263rd Feb 2026 by thelotusreaders

A fantastic new novel from a writer who is now on my list of ‘must buy’ authors. She sets her novel in 18th Century Covent Garden, where bawdy houses are far from uncommon and while Mrs Macauley’s house isn’t a high class establishment, her girls are clean and she looks after them well. Our main character Sukey Maynard is a young black woman who has run from Mrs Macauley and finds a young man almost beaten to death in the street. He is also black and she fears he’s a runaway slave. So she finds a local doctor who is known to treat people in poverty and leaves him there, with Dr. Sharp promising to let her know how he gets on. Sadly, her altruistic act means Mrs Macauley’s security man Jakes catches up with her; in saving Jonathon’s life she has forfeited her own. As she’s dragged back to the house and a punishment in ‘the coffin’, it sets up a claustrophobic and scary atmosphere where the rules have to be obeyed. However, life at Mrs Macauley’s is more complicated than that. Sukey is anxious, having just had her first bleed. This means she is ready for work and has years of ‘debt’ owed for her keep so far. She and her equally young friend, Emmy are like family, having grown up together after the death of Sukey’s mother who was Mrs Macauley’s friend. They were prostitutes together in their younger years, along with a third woman Madame Vernier who is recently back on the London scene after years in France. After visiting Mrs Macauley, Madame Vernier learns that Sukey may be ready to work and that an auction will be held for her virginity. She promises to help, hopefully finding someone for the auction who has the means to ‘keep’ Sukey if he’s pleased with her. But why does Madame Vernier want to help? Is it in remembrance of her friend or does she have a different scheme in mind?

The plot is fascinating with disappearing prostitutes, competing houses and Sukey desperately trying to work out who has fled of their own accord and who might have been taken by the feared ‘Piper’. When Madame Vernier secures Sukey a regular client she feels her worries are solved, but as Mrs Macauley starts to apply pressure for more than a week to week retainer will he come through for her? She dreads being thrown downstairs into the parlour for the nightly competition with the other girls for whichever drunk falls through the door. When the most vocal and experienced resident Camille goes missing from one of Madame Vernier’s parties, Sukey is determined to find out what happened to her. Weirdly she’s also sure she saw another girl missing from their neighbourhood, but working the party under a different name. There’s a mystery here and Sukey is unsure who to trust. This mystery brings an element of suspense to the story and means Sukey must grow up fast if she’s to solve it. She’s a naive girl, only just a young teenager really. She’s been protected until now by Mrs Macauley and considers Emmy her sister, so it’s a huge jolt to suddenly be deemed a woman and expected to entertain men with no experience whatsoever. Even worse must be seeing the ledger with every moment of her childhood laid out in pounds and shillings – an amount she now has to pay back. It’s no surprise that Sukey’s hopes for a ‘keeper’ are paramount and when she thinks she’s safe it leaves the other girls thinking she feels superior.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this house of working women and regular readers know my love for writing marginalised people back into history. Here it was great to read about women who are not the middle or upper class characters we often encountered in historical fiction. This is the turning upside down of 19th Century fiction norms, where we might expect the book’s focus to be one of rescuing our heroine. Yes, these women are in a tough situation and it may not be the way they’ve chosen to earn a living, but there are benefits compared to service or marriage. They are cooked for, sleep till late in the morning and they don’t have the drudgery of housework. They are also free from spending their lives obeying the man of the house. They earn more for less hours of work than a domestic servant. Their hours of leisure are their own, within reason and we see Sukey become more emancipated as she meets others who are black and live in her neighbourhood. I particularly loved the bookshop owner and his son who write the famous guide to London’s prostitutes and a profitable line in erotic literature. This is a great novel where no one is quite what you think they are and our intrepid heroine has a lot to learn, very fast. I learned a huge amount about the ethnicity of London in the 18th Century and I have to say I loved how the mystery unravelled. Sukey’s choices towards the end show a huge amount of growth and a deep longing for independence. I must also mention the title, bringing to mind a very different type of house and a sisterhood of nuns. This is another fantastic novel from Louise Hare with a complex and fascinating heroine.

Out on 12th February from HQ

Meet the Author

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including This Lovely City, which began life after a trip into the deep level shelter below Clapham Common. This Lovely City was featured on the inaugural BBC TWO TV book club show, Between the Covers, and has received multiple accolades, securing Louise’s place as an author to watch. This is her fourth novel.

Throwback Thursday

Homecoming by Kate Morton

Posted on 22nd Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

Adelaide Hills, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most mystifying murder investigations in the history of Australia.

London, 2018. Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, a phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.

Seeking comfort in her past, Jess discovers a true crime book at Nora’s house chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. And within its pages she finds a shocking personal connection to this notorious event – a crime that has never truly been solved . . .

I’ve always picked up Kate Morton’s novels and I don’t really know why this one has sat on my shelves for so long. I made it one of the novels to catch up on in December, when I take a break from blog tours and read what I feel like. It’s a chunky novel and it took some time to get to grips with everyone and their timelines but there’s no mistaking the power of the central image as new mum Izzy and her children are found on their picnic blanket by the creek. The man who makes the discovery assumes they’re asleep, until he sees a line of ants crawling over Matilda’s wrist. It’s such a striking image that it inspires the title of journalist Daniel Miller’s book ‘As If They Were Asleep’. The only person missing is baby Thea and it’s assumed she’s been carried away by wild dogs. The conclusion is that Izzy has poisoned herself and her children, in the grip of post-natal depression and unable to leave them behind. Back at their home, Halcyon, Izzy’s heavily pregnant sister-in-law Nora is waiting for her brother’s family to return. Possibly due to the shock and in a powerful storm, Nora gives birth to her own daughter Polly. Once she leaves for her own home, no one will ever return to Halcyon. Nora’s brother stays in the USA seemingly unable to face what happened to the woman he loved and the children whose voices once filled the house he fell in love with as soon as he saw it. Now, with Nora seriously ill in hospital, her granddaughter Jessie will be drawn into the cold case through Nora’s rambling words and Daniel’s book. What follows is a not just a complex murder case but a tale of mothers and daughters and how intergenerational trauma has an impact, even when it’s a closely guarded secret.

We’re given various viewpoints through the book and outside sources such as letters, documents and excerpts from Daniel’s book. We travel back to 1959 and Nora’s time at Halcyon and the accounts of various Turners, to Polly’s years growing up with mother Nora at their home near Sydney and Jess brings everything together in the present day. We dip in and out of these timelines and viewpoints and they are layered perfectly by Morton where they will make the most impact. Through this careful placement we build up a picture of characters and their motivations, only to have that impression change when we see a different viewpoint or Jess makes a discovery. My view of some characters changed radically, especially towards the end of the book when we hear more from Polly who has been an absent mother for most of Jess’s life. Nora and Jess have a solid relationship, perhaps closer than most grandchildren have with their grandmother since Jess grew up in Nora’s house until she left for England. She is distraught to arrive and realise her grandmother is more unwell than she imagined. For Jess, Nora has been the perfect example of a formidable woman. She gets things done and Jess has inherited her organisational talents and business-like manner. She feels she has little in common with Polly who is seen by both women as rather unreliable or flaky, a pregnant teenager who left the job of mothering Jess to Nora. I really liked the Nora I saw through Jess’s eyes and I was intrigued to know whether that would track back to 1959 and the young Nora who is pregnant with Polly and staying with Izzy and the children for Christmas.

I loved how Morton used the landscape, particularly regarding Halcyon – a veritable house of dreams. Michael fell in love with it straight away but it’s interesting how it echoes with his choice of wife and how it sits within the wider Aussie landscape. Described as a Georgian manor complete with its own English country garden strangely situated within the heat of southern Australia. It has a backdrop of boiling heat, ghostly silver gum trees on the horizon and its lush green garden stands out against the parched landscape. There’s something unnatural about it, as if a tornado had picked it up in England and dropped it on the other side of the world. This same description applies to Izzy, her pale and freckled beauty out of place in the brutal heat of that last summer. Michael Turner knew this was the right home for his family because it is the embodiment of his wife. Without tending and daily care, the garden and house would be taken over, becoming yellowed and dry and home to native plats and animals. Does Izzy also need such gentle tending? It is Nora who supplies the most compelling piece of evidence that she was struggling and feeling unable to cope. Jess needs to read the book about the case and have a search round the house before her grandmother comes home. It is only by chance that she gets to read Izzy’s thoughts first hand. Then when Polly arrives there’s a real chance for them to connect and discuss their family history openly and this is where the novel became really gripping. Up to this point we’ve only seen Nora through Jess’s eyes but now we see her through Polly’s eyes and there are so many more layers to this elderly lady, now unconscious in her hospital bed. I started to see her controlling side and her ability to manipulate with her money and status. I began to see Polly in a different light too and felt a huge amount of empathy for her situation and the things she lost.

It was only towards the end of the book when I realised that there aren’t many men in this family. In fact the only person who has no voice in the novel is Michael Turner. Why did he buy Halcyon, the dream family home and then live in a separate country from them? Polly doesn’t have a man in her life and nor does Jess. Morton keeps the twists and turns coming right up to the end of the novel, some expected and others a complete surprise. She never leaves even the tiniest loose end and that isn’t easy when we see just how far the ripples of this tragedy spread in the community. In the midst of that Christmas and all that comes after, Izzy really has an impact with her beauty and vitality. It is unthinkable that only hours later all that sparkle is simply snuffed out. If you love Kate Morton, this has all the aspects that make her novels so popular – the family saga, the big house and the secrets kept behind closed doors. However, this had the added element of an unsolved crime giving it an addictive quality. Added to that is the length of the book, allowing the story and characters to fully develop, showing fascinating and complex psychological dynamics between each mother and daughter. I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read it.

Meet the Author

KATE MORTON is an award-winning, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. Her novels – The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker’s Daughter and Homecoming – are published in over 45 countries, in 38 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world.

Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of southeast Queensland and now lives with her family in London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and harboured dreams of joining the Royal Shakespeare Company until she realised that it was words she loved more than performing. Kate still feels a pang of longing each time she goes to the theatre and the house lights dim.

“I fell deeply in love with books as a child and believe that reading is freedom; that to read is to live a thousand lives in one; that fiction is a magical conversation between two people – you and me – in which our minds meet across time and space. I love books that conjure a world around me, bringing their characters and settings to life, so that the real world disappears and all that matters, from beginning to end, is turning one more page.”

http://www.katemorton.com

http://www.facebook.com/KateMortonAuthor

Keep up-to-date on Kate Morton’s books and events by joining her mailing list: http://www.katemorton.com/mailing-list

Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Mother & Daughter Relationships

Posted on 20th Jan 202619th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt

I love the tagline to this novel because it is just so peculiarly British. The phrase ‘shall I be mother’ meaning ‘shall I pour the tea’ must seem so odd to people whose first language isn’t English. It fits perfectly to this book because it’s about all those tiny tasks of motherhood, not to mention the ‘mental load’. It acknowledges a role, but is it a role that can be avoided as easily as it can be adopted? Underlying all those tiny things a mother does are huge acts of care and love, duty, loyalty and service. I read this book back when I was at university but have never been a mother, until I entered a relationship with a man who had two daughters around eight years ago. So it’s later in life when I’ve started to complain about all the tiny things I do that go unnoticed, usually after Christmas when I have the annual moan of ‘without women there would be no Christmas.” Loved and Missed is about Ruth a schoolteacher and single mother whose daughter Eleanor rebels against her fiercely, before leaving her to bring up her granddaughter Lily when Eleanor can’t. It’s not a plot driven novel, but more of an observance on life as a mum. The title refers to a gravestone that Lily notices with the epitaph ‘Loved and Missed’, which sounds as if love was intended but never quite reached or the target moved at the last moment. This slightly comedic, bittersweet observation sets the tone for a novel that’s about the mundanities of everyday life but also the emotions hidden amongst the endless washing and cleaning. It suggests that motherhood can take many forms and doesn’t always run in linear ways – a truth that rings home for me as the mother to many more people than my two stepdaughters. However, once taken, these bonds can’t be removed. This is a novel about what jt’s like to be in a mother -daughter relationship that may be a rollercoaster at times and at other times just ordinary everyday life.

Postcards From The Edge

‘I don’t think you can even call this a drug. This is just a response to the conditions we live in.’

I really do miss Carrie Fisher, whether it’s the 19year old of Star Wars, the cynical friend of Sally Albright or the grumpy and hilarious mother in Catastrophe. A fictionalised look at her own relationship with her mother Debbie Reynolds, made all the more poignant by the fact that we now know that when Carrie died suddenly and unexpectedly, her mother died the day after. She just wanted to be with Carrie, said Reynolds’s son and it tells us how strong that bond is, even when it’s been stretched and almost broken. Susannah Vale is a former acclaimed actress, but is now in rehab, feeling like ‘something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting’. She becomes Immersed in the harrowing, but often hilarious, goings-on of the drug hospital and wondering how she’ll cope – and find work – back on the outside. Then she meets the Heathcliff of addiction, new patient Alex. He’s ambitious, Byronically good looking and is in the depths of addiction. He makes Suzanne realize that, although her life might seem eccentric, there’s always someone who’s even closer to the edge of reason. This is clearly in some ways autobiographical, dealing with that second generation Hollywood problem of following in a parent’s footsteps. There are times when Suzanne would like her mum to be there, but Mum is filming so has to send the maid over instead. It’s quite different from the film, but both are witty and a great read. I often wondered if Debbie Fisher’s role as Grace’s mother in the series Will and Grace had some basis in her relationship with her daughter and it’s possible.

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mum, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, the mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and – of course – delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life. And then Carol appears, healthy and sun-tanned… and thirty years old. Meeting her Mum at this age is going to throw up things Katy didn’t know about. Carol doesn’t recognise her, so her actions are completely unguarded, whereas Katy does know who Carol is and I wondered how long she would be able to keep it to herself. It was interesting to see Katy starting to question whether all aspects of their relationship were positive. Carol has always been so opinionated about how things should be done so Katy and Eric have always gone to her for advice when making decisions. Katy realises she’s never made her own decisions because Carol has always weighed in on everything from what clothes to buy and whether she should have children yet. She always seemed so sure of what to do and Katy has felt inadequate to an extent, unable to weigh up the options and make her own mistakes. There is a bit of anger and resentment here; Why does this Carol seem so go with the flow when her mum always planned everything with military precision? This was another beautiful book from Rebecca Searle, concentrating on the relationships between mothers and daughters and the effect our parents have on our development as people. All set in the magical Italian sun, with a lot of personal reflection and even a little bit of romance thrown in. I loved how the space and the experience gives Katy a chance to re-evaluate her life and the way she’s been living it.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy was only six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, whatever it took, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went accepted what her mother called “calorie restriction”, plus weighing herself five times a day and eventually shrinking down to 89 pounds. She endured endless at-home makeovers using knockoff whitening strips, hot curlers, eyelash tint, and gobs of bleach to enhance her “natural beauty.” She was showered by her mother until she was sixteen while sharing her diaries, an email account, and all her earnings. The dream finally comes true when Jennette is cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly and is thrust into fame. But for Jennette, the dream is a nightmare. Overnight, her fake smile and cheesy airbrushed hair-do is plastered on billboards across the country. Of course her mom is ecstatic, ordering her to smile for the paparazzi (with whom she’s on a first-name basis) and sign endless autographs for fans who only know her by her character’s name, Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction and a series of unhealthy relationships.These issues only get worse when Jennette’s mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and coldly examining the relationship with her mother, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with raw honesty and equal parts gravity and humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is a shocking, devastating, and ultimately inspiring story of resilience.

After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

When Sarah Perry was twelve, there was a partial eclipse – supposedly a good omen for her and her mother, Crystal who were living in rural Maine. But that moment of darkness was a foreshadowing moment: two days later, Crystal is murdered in their home. It then took twelve years to find the killer. In that time, Sarah had to learn how to rebuild her life despite the obvious abandonment issues and the toll of the police interrogation and effects of trauma. She looked forward to the eventual trial, hoping that afterwards she would feel a sense of closure, but it didn’t come. Finally, she realised that she understanding her mother’s death wasn’t what she needed. She needed to understand her mother’s life. So, drawn back to Maine and the secrets of a small American town she begins to investigate. I was stunned by what Perry does with such a dark subject matter. This could have been a tragedy but Perry manages to create warmth and humanity from her story. I was honestly surprised by how hopeful it felt, despite the grief and a search for understanding. Perry shows how the working poor overcome challenges and how strong mothers make choices we can’t imagine in terrible circumstances. With clarity and kindness Perry explains the motivations of people in poverty and is even understanding towards the men in her mother’s life, while managing to make the link between misogyny and violence against women. Something that’s both a cause of violence and a factor in investigating crimes against women. She presents her hometown with so much warmth and the landscape of Maine provides a stunning backdrop to her childhood. This was a beautiful and authentic read.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Mia Warren is an enigmatic artist and single mother, who arrives in this idyllic suburb with her teenage daughter Pearl. She rents a house from the Richardsons and soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants. Soon and in different ways all four Richardson children are drawn to this mother-daughter pairing. But Mia carries a mysterious past and a disregard for the unspoken rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. The catalyst for conflict comes when an old family friend of the Richardsons attempts to adopt a Chinese-American baby and a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town. A divide that puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost. This is an unputdownable thriller that shows us two very different ways of mothering. One is very ordered and focused on achievements, having goals and knowing the right people. The other is more intuitive and emotionally authentic, but also carries baggage from previous lives. It also shows how individual children can’t be approached or parented in the same way. Finally with the adoption storyline she brings in the economic impact of becoming a mother, meaning it’s a hard or impossible choice for some women. Utterly gripping.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

This is the story of Jeanette, born to be one of God’s elect: adopted by a fanatical Pentecostal family and ablaze with her own zeal for the scriptures, she seems perfectly suited for the life of a missionary. But then she converts Melanie, and realises she loves this woman almost as much as she loves the Lord. How on Earth could her Church called that passion Unnatural? While this is categorised as a queer coming of age story, it is not Jeanette’s relationship with Melanie that I remember but the relationship between her and her mother. Perhaps because I grew up in an evangelical church environment after being a Roman Catholic until I was ten years old, those scenes at the church and just how intransigent her mother was, stayed with me. This was a book and a tv series I shared with my mother and possibly played a part in her realisations about the church she was in. There’s a horrifying zeal to her mother’s actions. Her religion dominates the life of her household and has effectively placed a barrier between her and her husband. Jeanette’s childhood is a litany of brainwashing that starts the moment she gets up and only stops when she goes to sleep. There is no room to manoeuvre within her rules and expectations, but when Jeanette becomes friends with Melanie it emboldens her to ask the question. If her love for Melanie feels so authentic and natural, how can it be wrong? This thought and the kindness of others in her community is her lifeline. This book showed me what I already suspected was wrong with the teachings of my own mother’s choice of church and how much it had taken over my parent’s lives – thankfully not for too long. I didn’t know at first that this was auto-fiction but I admired Jeanette Winterson so much for writing it, not just because it was a queer love story, but because it questioned evangelical religion and showed how it can devastate the relationship between mothers and daughters.

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

I always recommend this debut novel of Edwidge Danticat’s. I first read it at university as part of my post-colonial and American literature modules and set off a lifelong interest in Haiti. Sophie has always lived with her aunt in Haiti, but at the age of twelve, she is sent to New York to be reunited with her mother, who she barely remembers. Feeling completely out of place in New York’s Haitian diaspora she longs for the sights and tastes of home, with a mother who only wants to forget. She doesn’t understand why her mother bleaches her skin and doesn’t eat very much, only that she misses her home. There are also her mother’s boyfriends who seem to make the gulf between her and her mum even wider, leaving them no time to get to know each other. After a while she makes friends with a boy in their apartment block and starts to feel heard, but this friendship is a catalyst for terrible actions, family secrets and a legacy of shame that comes from trauma. Sophie knows this can be healed only when she returns to Haiti – to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence.

Danticat evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti through the women of this family. She depicts the enduring strength of Haiti’s women – with vibrant imagery and a narrative that bears witness to their suffering.

Amazing Grace Adam’s by Fran Littlewood

Is this the best worst day of her life?

Grace is stuck in traffic, it’s a boiling hot day and she’s melting. All she wants to do is get to the bakery and pick up the cake for her daughter’s birthday. Lotte moved out and is living with her father. This is one hell of a birthday cake, not only is it a Love Island cake; it has to say that Grace cares, that she’s sorry, that will show Lotte she loves her and hasn’t given up on their relationship. It’s shaping up to be the day from hell and as Grace sits in a tin can on boiling hot tarmac, something snaps. She decides to get out of the car and walk, leaving her vehicle stranded and pissing off everyone now blocked by a car parked in the middle of a busy road. She’s peri-menopausal, wearing trainers her daughter thinks she shouldn’t be wearing at her age and she’s had enough. So, despite the fact her trainers aren’t broken in, she sets off walking towards the bakery and a reunion with Lotte. There are just a few obstacles in the way, but Grace can see the cake and Lotte’s face when she opens the box. As she walks she recounts everything that has happened to bring her to where she is now, including the secret of how they all got here.

The truth when it comes is devastating, but feels weirdly like something you’ve known all along. Those interspersed chapters from happier times are a countdown to this moment, a before and after that runs like a fault line through everything that’s happened since. As Grace closes in on Lotte’s party, sweaty, dirty and brandishing her tiny squashed cake, it doesn’t seem enough to overturn everything that’s happened, but of course it isn’t about the cake. This is about everything Grace has done to be here, including the illegal bits. In a day that’s highlighted to Grace how much she has changed, physically and emotionally, her determination to get to Lotte has shown those who love her best that she is still the same kick-ass woman who threw caution to the wind and waded into the sea to save a man she didn’t know from drowning. That tiny glimpse of how amazing Grace Adams is, might just save everything.

In A Thousand Different Ways by Cecilia Aherne

She knows your secrets. Now discover hers…

You’ve never met anyone like Alice. She sees the best in people. And the worst. She always seems to know exactly what everyone around her is feeling: a thousand different emotions. Every. Single. Day. In amongst all that noise, she’s lost herself.

But there’s one person she can’t read. And that’s the person who could change her life.

Is she ready to let him in? While this is Alice’s story it all hinges on the relationship she and her two brothers had with their mother. Alice has a form of synasthaesia – an ability to see people’s character and emotions in colour. These auras help to inform her of the mood her mum is in, so she knows when to keep her head down or get out of the way. Alice and her older brother are desperately trying to keep their family together despite their mother’s mental health and the alcohol she abuses to self-medicate. Alice can tell the highs, when her mother might go into a frenzy of baking or creating, imagining she could run her own business. Then there are days she can’t even make it out of bed. The children don’t want to be found out and split up, perhaps even taken into care. Until one day Alice comes home and sees a dark blue colour hovering over her mum and knows she must take action. Alice’s childhood affects her ability to trust, to form relationships and even value herself but one thing she does know is what kind of mother she will be. Years later, Alice’s mother re-enters her life with a terminal illness. She wants to meet her grandchildren and make amends. Can Alice trust her and will she finally be able to process the trauma of her childhood? This was a great read from a writer I don’t usually read. It captures the fear of going home for a child whose parent struggles with their mental health an addiction. It also explores the complexities of time away from that parent, how it can be healing but also difficult to draw those boundaries. It also brings up forgiveness and how it can be just as healing.

Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Books to Know Me

Posted on 6th Jan 2026 by thelotusreaders

I thought it was probably time to introduce myself to my new subscribers and what better way to do it than by sharing some of my all time favourite novels. First of all I’d like to say welcome to you all and thank you for subscribing. This year there will still be book reviews and blog tour posts, but I’m also going to be sharing my favourite novel and authors with my Sunday Spotlight and my new Tens on Tuesday posts, starting with this one. I think this post lets you know a bit about me and my interests: historical novels, crime and mystery, the Gothic, trauma and psychology, disability and finally a little sprinkle of magic. I hope you enjoy hearing about what I’m currently reading but also older books, authors and themes I love too. Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a great year reading what you love.

I think this novel is the one that explains a lot about my reading tastes ever since I first read it when I was ten years old and the BBC series with Timothy Dalton as Mr Rochester was on Sunday afternoons. I loved how this little girl tried to stand up for herself with her horrible aunt and cousin, being labelled wilful and passionate and in need of correction. Being locked in the Red Room and then sent to boarding school at Lowood were meant to soften her, to make her grateful for the roof over her head. All it does is strengthen her sense of justice and although she learns to keep her opinions in check, those emotions are still simmering underneath. When she takes a position as governess to a French girl called Adele at Thornfield Hall, the book becomes more than a Bildungsroman and develops into a Gothic mystery, a genre I love to this day. The scenes where Jane hears noises in the passageway at night, she hears a maniacal laugh and finds a half burned candle left behind, then when a dark, demonic woman enters Jane’s bedroom and tears her wedding veil in two, are truly frightening. Added to this is the dark and mysterious Mr Rochester who appears out of the mist on a black horse and finds solace in the quiet Jane who can keep up with his intellect and doesn’t bow to his demands. Now if a book has a stately home, a mystery to solve, the paranormal and a feminist heroine it’s in my basket straight away.

I bought this novel for the cover alone when I saw it in Lindum Books. I now have six copies in different styles and I love them all. I’ve seen the novel described as phantasmagorical and I could apply this word to a whole raft of books I’ve read since. Outside London, in an undefined historical setting, a wandering and magical circus appears where many of the attractions defy explanation. As well as disappearing and reappearing at will, the circus is the focus of a competition played by two powerful magicians through their protégés Marcus and Celia. The great magician Prospero and his rival Mr A.H. have chosen their players and proceed to create magical challenges for the younger pair, but this is a secret competition and neither one knows they are rivals. Celia is Prospero’s daughter and he has trained her as an illusionist, using cruel and manipulative methods. Marcus is trained to create fantastical scenes for the circus that he must pluck out of his mind. As soon as they’re both of age they are linked to the circus, not knowing their competitor but becoming increasingly suspicious that they’re present at the Circus of Dreams. Meanwhile, other performers start to question the circus and its magical powers – they are forever young and unable to leave. The beauty of the circus seems to mask sinister intent and as Celia resolves to end this game, she and Marco fall in love. Is this love doomed or can they escape without causing further harm. This book inspires artists and creatives all over the world and it captures my imagination every time I pick it up for a re-read.

As someone with a disability, a heroine with a ‘hare’ or cleft lip was a real find in a book that had really passed me by until around twenty years ago. The author Mary Webb was writing in the early 20th Century but her heroine Pru Sarn lives in rural Shropshire at the beginning of the 19th Century. Local suspicion is that Pru’s mother was scared by a hare during pregnancy, causing the disfigurement she calls her ‘precious bane’. Bad luck starts to dog the family when Pru’s father dies and there is no ‘sin eater’ at the funeral. Superstition states that someone must take on the deceased’s sins so that they’re ensured a place in heaven. Despite all his family’s please not to, Pru’s brother steps forward to take on those sins and from that point on their luck changes. Gideon goes from an affable young man, in love with the prettiest local girl Janis Beguildy and set to take on the family farm, to a bitter and avaricious individual who drives his own family into exhaustion in the pursuit of money. Meanwhile, Pru falls in love with Kester Woodseaves, the weaver at Jancis’s bridal celebration but there’s nothing that would make him look at her twice with her lip and the ill luck that goes with it. This is a story rich with local folklore and old skills that are slowly dying out in rural communities. It’s also about how those superstitions can drive people to look for blame and how women like Pru can become scapegoats for a bad wheat crop. Billed as a writer of romance there’s a lot more to Mary Webb’s work and her challenge to the stereotype of facial disfigurement representing evil is definitely ahead of his time.

I loved this book from Alice Hoffman so much, because it has all the Hoffman magic but is set within the Coney Island freak shows at the turn of the 20th Century, something I researched while writing my dissertation on disability and literature. I’d watched the film Freaks and was fascinated with the complexities of displaying your extraordinary body for money. It’s exploitative yet on the other hand it pays well and is perhaps the performer’s only way of being independent, these contradictions are shown in this novel following Coralie Sardie the daughter of the Barnum- like impresario of the museum. Coralie is an incredible swimmer and performs as the museum’s mermaid, enduring punishing all year round training in the East River every morning. It’s after one of these sessions goes wrong that Coralie is washed far upstream into the outskirts of NYC where development suddenly gives way to wild forests. There she meets Eddie Cohen who is taking pictures of the trees and hiding out from his own community, where his father’s expectation is for him to train as a tailor in the family business. Alice Hoffman weaves Eddie and Coralie’s story with real historic events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the other wonders who populate Coney Island and her particular blend of magic.

This must appear on so many ‘best of’ lists and there’s a good reason why. I was introduced to Daphne Du Maurier very early in life through my mum who showed me the Hitchcock adaptation of the novel starring Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Wjinter and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter. This was an incredible film and no adaptation since has come close to emulating it, although I still hold out hope for a Carey Mulligan Mrs de Winter someday. This has one of the best openings of any book with its dream of the winding drive at the Cornish home of the de Winters, Manderley setting the atmosphere perfectly. This is where ghosts and secrets lurk beneath the outwardly perfect life led by Max and his beautiful first wife Rebecca. Our unnamed narrator is in Monte Carlo as a paid companion to an obnoxious rich woman who sees the infamous widower and an opportunity to hear some first hand gossip to take with them to their next destination. Her companion is young, quiet and under confident. She has no family and is vulnerable in a way that I’d didn’t see when I first read the book and the disparity between them is more obvious the older I get. One thing that really angers me is that Maxim doesn’t bother to remove traces of his ex-wife whose extravagant signature is emblazoned on the stationery in the morning room and her pillowcases in the untouched bedroom she occupied overlooking the sea. Also he doesn’t even consider that her upbringing is from such a different class, she has no concept of how to run a stately home and falls victim to the ghoulish Mrs Danvers, Rebecca’s old maid and now the housekeeper of Manderley. This is most definitely not a love story, it’s a mystery with a hero who is controlling and manipulative to his new wife. This is a book to re-read over and over.

A spiteful spirit rules the roost at the home runaway slave Sethe shares with her elderly mother-in-low and daughter Denver, a ghost that haunts with a ‘baby’s venom’. It’s a million miles away from her years in slavery at Sweet Home, but she carries the damage of those years in the whip marks on her back that look like a gnarled tree. The atmosphere of this little house is set to change though as two visitors come calling; one is Paul D who was also at Sweet Home and shares so many experiences with Sethe she will have to talk about them. The second is a naked young woman who seems almost non-verbal, like a toddler in the body of a young woman. Sethe is entranced by their guest, who demands more and more of her attention pushing out Denver and trying to create a wedge between her and Paul D who has to sleep in the outhouse. Sethe believes that this girl is the embodiment of that restless spirit in the house, who has gone remarkably quiet. While Sethe becomes drained and exhausted trying to care for her new charge. What is her purpose with Sethe and why does she take the treatment meted out to her? The answers lie in a grave marked with one word – Beloved – and the unthinkable price of freedom.

This book was the first of two featuring the Todd family and their lives across the 20th Century. Here we see the world through the eyes of the Todd’s youngest daughter Ursula, born on a snowy night in 1910. As her mother Sylvia gives birth, the cord becomes wrapped around Ursula’s neck and she dies before the doctor can even reach their home. We then loop back and Ursula survives her birth but dies from a fall as she leans from a window to retrieve her doll, or she dies by drowning as a little girl. In 1918 their maid joins the Victory Day celebrations post WWI and brings Spanish Flu to the Todd house killing Ursula at eight years old. Each loop of Ursula’s life is longer and we see more of the family’s rather upper middle class life in Chalfont St. Peter in Buckinghamshire. We notice that Ursula becomes more knowing, taking experiences from her extinguished lives to avoid that fate the next time round – at one point she remembers her death at the hands of a rapist and next time is aggressively rude to avoid his company so she lives a little longer. Later lives take Ursula into womanhood and WW2, working for the war office in London and experiencing the terrors of the Blitz, sometimes rescuing others and other times perishing underneath the rubble. Eventually she works her way close to Hitler through Eva Braun and determines to end the war by killing him. What we never know is how these lives turn out for others, as each narrative ends definitively with Ursula’s death. I loved Kate Atkinson’s bravery and playfulness in using such a complex structure and inventing a character like Ursula who is able to carry the novel on her shoulders. I’ve enjoyed other novels from the author, especially A God in Ruins where we follow the life of her brother Teddy, but there’s no question that this book is her masterpiece.

I’ve read a few of Thomas Hardy’s novels, but something about Far From The Madding Crowd stays with me. At heart it’s a love story, with all the obstacles and diversions you’d expect from the moment shepherd Gabriel Oak turns up at Bathsheba Everdene’s door with a lamb for her to hand rear and a proposal. A proposal she refuses on the basis that she has a lot of other things she wants to do. After this a terrible misfortune befalls Gabriel as he loses his whole flock to a young sheepdog who drives them off the cliffs. However this does force him to cross paths with Bathsheba a second time when he goes for a job where the new farm owner is a woman. Bathsheba makes so many rash decisions, especially where men are concerned, but Gabriel becomes her trusted and loyal friend. As always with Hardy it’s the misfortunes that tug hard on the heartstrings: a pregnant servant girl who goes to marry her soldier lover at the wrong church, the tragic and lonely Mr. Boldwood who takes a poorly timed Valentine joke to heart and Gabriel’s faithfulness to his friend, always putting her first even when she doesn’t appreciate it. Hardy captures the headstrong and impulsive young girl beautifully and as always the rural setting is so wonderfully drawn and strangely restful to read. Having grown up on farms my whole life I understand the character’s connection to the land and the animals they care for, plus I always long for a happier ending than Hardy’s other women.

It’s hard to pick one favourite from Jodi Picoult’s back catalogue and I have about four that I love and read again, including her most recent novel about the works of Shakespeare By Any Other Name, Small Great Things and Plain Truth. This one stayed with me, perhaps because of my late in-laws WW2 experiences and the realisation that the generation who went through the invasion of Poland first hand will one day be gone. Recording their stories is vital and although this is fiction it still has a purpose, in educating readers about the Holocaust. Ironically, it has been banned in several school districts in the US despite its message on fascism and antisemitism. It makes it all the more important to read it as well as Picoult’s other banned novels. Sage Singer is something of a recluse, working nights in her local bakery to avoid people. She wears her hair to cover a large scar across her cheek, caused by a car accident that killed her mother. Sage sees her scar as a reminder she was responsible for her mother’s death and struggles terribly with survivor’s guilt and the resulting lack of self worth. When she attends a grief therapy group she meets an elderly local man called Josef Weber, a resident of Westerbrook for forty years with his wife who has recently died. He’s known for kind acts around town, but as he and Page become friends he tells her a terrible secret. In WW2 he was a guard at Auschwitz and is responsible for the deaths of many people. He asks Sage to help him commit suicide, leaving her with a dilemma. Sage describes her self as an atheist despite coming from a religious Jewish family. Can she be friend with this man? Should she report her discovery? Should Josef be able to cheat the death God has planned for him when so many others had no choice? Picoult structures this narrative like a set of Russian dolls and the very centre is the story of Minka, Sage’s grandmother who managed to survive a concentration camp. This is the heart of the story, a survivor’s account that describes how an SS Guard allowed her rewards of food and warmth because of her incredible talent as a storyteller. This is a hard but vital read with huge dilemmas around forgiveness, the degree of bad deeds and whether all sin is the same. Are some people simply unforgivable despite their attempts to change? Is accepting earthly punishment part of forgiveness? Is killing ever justified? It is absolutely spellbinding.

I adore the playful opening of this historical novel as our heroine addresses us and draws us in to her world, a version of London rarely examined at the time. Published in 2002, Michael Faber introduces us to Sugar who has worked in a brothel since she was thirteen. She’s creative and intelligent, scribbling down her story in the time she has between working. She’s also streetwise and determined to create a new life for herself. She meets the rather clumsy and awkward William Rackham as a client. He’s married but his wife Agnes is delicate, a fragile Victorian ideal of a wife who’s disturbed by her own bodily functions. She’s sent further into decline after the birth of their daughter, Sophie and now has no idea she is a mother. She is kept drugged in her room, with visits from the creepy Dr. Curlew whose treatment is sexual assault. The two women couldn’t be more of a contrast. Sugar believes that William might be her ticket to a new life, not that she’s in love with him of course. William is a selfish man, inadequate and under pressure to continue the success of the family soap factory, a business built by his overbearing father. He’s obsessed with Sugar and thinks he could have the object of his affections closer to home. What if he engaged Sugar as Sophie’s governess? This is an incredibly well written novel, full of detail on a grubby and exploitative part of London that Sugar navigates with practised skill, utterly reliant on her own wits. She’s a beguiling character who knows that the gentlemanly ideal is a facade and that all men are disappointing or dangerous. Watching her encroach onto William’s carefully constructed home life is fascinating and you’ll be desperately hoping that all of his women will find a way of escaping their fates.