Kate Hamer’s The Girl in the Red Coat stands out among the growing number of Girls in book titles not simply thanks to its striking red cover. Open that up and you’ll discover not one but two truly engrossing stories, narrated in turn by a mother and her daughter, and blending modern-day anxieties and a nightmare situation with fairytale-like qualities to make…
Hausfrau is the German word for housewife so at first glance this isn’t a book likely to appeal to me. But it’s an English-language novel using the title and that piqued my interest. Besides, ever since almost missing out on Emma Chapman’s excellent How to Be a Good Wife, which is now a firm favourite, I’m wary of discounting wifey books….
Tasha Kavanagh’s Things We Have in Common is an unsettling but riveting novel about loneliness, about being made to feel different but still wanting to belong, about the desperate need for friendship and making human connections and, ultimately, about obsession. If you’ve ever felt outside a clique or the in-crowd, as if you’re one of life’s observers, destined to be a…
For a psychological thriller, Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell is different enough to help it stand out in an increasingly crowded genre. What appealed to me about it in particular is that its about the two survivors of a relatively short-term crime, who tell their stories in alternating chapters throughout the book, but we first meet up with them years after the event…
Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven is a book I devoured when I first read it, and one I’ve kept on my shelf, gifted to friends and recommended to many others. It’s also a book worth revisiting. I feel the need of its hopeful message even more now, as 2016 draws to a close, than when it first came out…
This beautiful book is well worth reading if you’ve ever felt in need of a change of scene, especially to the point of it being the answer to all your problems. The Other Side of the World is an extreme example of the grass is always greener that might help you appreciate home more or simply help you realise that…
If you’re looking for an epic love story filled with adventure that takes in Europe, North America and Polynesia along the way, and that has at its heart a real couple, Under the Wide and Starry Sky could be just the book for you. If you’re a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetry or prose, even better, because this is Nancy…
If, like me, you’ve ever longed for a romantic heroine who didn’t have perfect skin, an exciting job in the city, hardly any flaws and was totally lovely but inexplicably couldn’t find anyone to love her, then it might be time to download Five Go Glamping and escape to the countryside for a few hours. Festival tickets Double check best Instagram…
Two things drew me to Keith Stuart’s novel, A Boy Made of Blocks: the first was that it was inspired by his own experiences with one of his sons, who was diagnosed with autism, and I hoped it might help me see the world through the eyes of someone with autism and those closest to them, and perhaps come to…
Even before meeting those winning and winsome literary silver arctic foxes Harold Fry* and Allan Karlsson**, I’ve long held a special place in my heart for older men with a bit of a twinkle in their eye and a penchant for roguish mischief and storytelling, thanks to a much-loved and missed uncle, and a godfather who wrote the best letters…