‘Today is my death anniversary. A year ago today I was still alive.’ Rachel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life – until the night Rachel’s heart stopped beating. Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can’t forget her, Rachel can’t… Read More »
It must be ten years since I last read a book by Lesley Pearse. I can remember devouring her early books, hot off the press, and I’m not entirely sure why I left her behind. I think it had a lot to do with falling out with large, heavy books – heavy in the handling… Read More »
August, 1978. Chicago. Shopping at Saks, summers in the Riviera, cruising down Lake Shore Drive in a toffee-coloured stretch limo. For ten year old Bettina, this is what’s normal. She’s grown up as the heiress to one of America’s biggest fortunes – and in the shadow of her dangerously hedonistic mother Babs. Babs plays by… Read More »
Spanning four generations, The Midnight Rosesweeps from the glittering palaces of the great maharajas of India to the majestic stately homes of England, following the extraordinary life of a girl, Anahita Chavan, from 1911 to the present day . . . In the heyday of the British Raj, eleven-year-old Anahita, from a noble but impoverished… Read More »
Have you ever read a book and loved it so much that you wished you’d written it? As I start to think about writing, with all that lovely time I’m going to have available after my early retirement, I sometimes daydream about the novel I might write. If ever I get round to actually doing… Read More »
1913. Unmarried sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh live an impoverished existence in a tiny cottage on the banks of the Little River in Suffolk. Their life is quiet and predictable, until a sudden flood throws up a strange fish on their doorstep and a travelling man who will change them forever. 1939. Eighteen-year-old Birdie Farr… Read More »
In the crisp early morning hours, the police are called to a suspected murder at a farm outside a small English village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, blood all over the cottage she lived in. At the same time, police respond to a reported female suicide, where a car has fallen into… Read More »
You were loved and lost – then you came back . . . Five years ago, three-year-old Dillon disappeared. For his father Harry – who left him alone for ten crucial minutes – it was an unforgivable lapse. Yet Dillon’s mother Robyn has never blamed her husband: her own secret guilt is burden enough. Now… Read More »
New York City, 1924: the height of Prohibition and the whole city swims in bathtub gin. Rose Baker is an orphaned young woman working for her bread as a typist in a police precinct on the lower East Side. Every day Rose transcribes the confessions of the gangsters and murderers that pass through the precinct.… Read More »
‘I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.’ Oliver Ryan is a handsome and charismatic success story. He lives in the leafy suburbs with his wife, Alice, who illustrates his award-winning children’s books and gives him her unstinting devotion. Their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease – enviable… Read More »
Two hostages. One bullet. A killer decision. Would you sacrifice yourself for another? A deranged criminal abducts couples – the victims wake up disorientated and desperate, they’re trapped with no one to hear their screams. They shout and plead, they scramble around, and that’s when they find the gun loaded with one bullet and with it… Read More »
New Year – the perfect time to be writing a review of Angela Jackson’s debut novel The Emergence of Judy Taylor, while my head’s still full of changes and fresh starts and opportunities to be taken. The paperback edition was published by Canvas (Constable and Robinson) on 21 November 2013, and the book came highly recommended by… Read More »
I was so excited – I stopped off at a charity shop between Manchester Piccadilly and KRO restaurant where I was meeting bookish friends for lunch. There on the shelf was a pristine uncorrected proof copy of the new Emma Donoghue, Frog Music, not due for release until March 2014 by Picador. I’m not a… Read More »
And just one final look at my Christmas reading! I wouldn’t normally write a full review of a novella – there’s rarely enough to write about – but Holly’s Christmas Kiss by Alison May really, really impressed me and I’d hate anyone to miss it and write it off as just another Christmas short read. Holly… Read More »
Well, it’s all over for another year – I hope everyone had a lovely break, that you’ve managed to finish off the turkey, and that Santa brought you everything you wished for. I have a few days of mince pie eating and Baileys drinking before I return to work, and a welcome opportunity to catch… Read More »