Pity the poor mother, Jenny, in this book. She works as a GP and her husband is a neurosurgeon. Jenny juggles the kids, work, the dog and the house, enabling her husband to consistently put his work first, and firmly believing they are a happy family. Suddenly her fifteen year old daughter Naomi goes missing […]
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan
A real winner of a police thriller from first time writer McTiernan, set in Ireland. Her main character, officer Cormac Reilly, is the sort of a chap you’d quite like to have a beer with but he is kept rather busy figuring out the politics and agendas within the Garda police station where he works. […]
Fellside by MR Carey
This ghost story set in a prison near the Yorkshire moors never quite gets off the ground. It isn’t half as involving as Carey’s two other novels – The Girl With All the Gifts and The Boy on The Bridge. Not terrible, but disappointing considering we know what Carey is capable of.
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Ah, this one is beautiful. I liked it even better than Patchett’s previous novel Bel Canto. It begins with an illicit kiss at a christening in 1964 and gently unspools from there. The story isn’t that important; the writing is, and the compassion with which Patchett deals with her characters. If you like this one, try […]
The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey
Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock has a complicated life. She has a demanding career and a young son with a man who she’s clearly not in love with. She is also is having a passionate affair with her partner, who has his own wife and children. Essentially she has all the hallmarks of your typical hard […]
The Child by Fiona Barton
When the body of a baby is found in a building site, two women are thoroughly shaken but for entirely different reasons. Angela, seeking closure, feels it may be the body of her baby, stolen from the maternity ward many years ago. Emma knows exactly whose baby it is but the revelation forces her to confront […]
I Found You by Lisa Jewel
A nice, amiable bit of fiction from Lisa Jewel with an unexpected twist at the end. Alice Lake, a hopelessly disorganised but essentially good person, invites a man she finds on the beach to stay out the back of her place. The man has no memory of who he is and his identity is tied […]
Reckoning by Magda Szubanski
Reckoning actually deserves all the awards it has been given, but don’t go expecting many laughs. Magda explores her father’s past as a second world war assassin in Poland, and the way his drive and perfectionism affected her as a child. She writes rivetingly about her fatness and how she holds it around her like a security blanket: […]