Six friends. Three secrets. One murder. The strapline of this novel suggests a crime thriller, but if that’s what you’re seeking, you might not find it here. A woman dies, that’s true, but somehow her death immediately becomes less important than the sex lives of the living. What’s it about? Maggie’s hen party is a […]
If you kiss your spouse’s double, is it cheating? If you met your quantum double, would you like them? And most pressingly of all, how on earth would you find your way back to your own home in your own universe? In Vitali Vitaliev’s new novel, his confused characters, Viktor and Katherine Petroff, and Victor […]
If you could turn back time, would you choose a different life? What a question! Would you? After reading the first few chapters I was intrigued but concerned – had I already worked out exactly what was to come and why? If so, 475 pages could feel like quite an effort to reach a conclusion […]
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to another person? If your actions resulted in catastrophe, could you bear to face the consequences? Journalist Rebecca Thornton’s debut novel, ‘The Exclusives’, explores the consequences when best friends Josephine and Freya betray one another in their final year at boarding school. What’s it about? Archaeologist Josephine Grey […]
Sometimes there is no safe place. So begins the blurb for Tana French’s fourth novel, ‘Broken Harbour’, in which it gradually becomes clear that a family’s house and their relationship with it has played a significant role in their murders. What’s it about? A family of four have been found slain in their own home. […]
Some books are comforting diversions from reality. Recently I spotted Jill Mansell’s ‘The One You Really Want’ on my ereader and remembered that I used to enjoy her books sufficiently to have purchased several. Despite this not featuring on my current TBR list, it jumped to the top of my Actually Reading list due to […]
How would you react if you were arrested for murder? Would you be angry? Frightened? Horrified? Or would you reflect on the prevalence of earthquakes in your adopted city? If the latter sounds like you then you might get along very well with Lucy Fly, English-born, Tokyo-based and newly minted murder suspect. What’s it about? […]
Secrets. Everyone has at least one. But would yours destroy your marriage? In an instance of pure serendipity, this month’s book group choice was one I had recently placed on my wish list, so I was glad to get the opportunity to try-before-you-buy. What’s it about? Cecilia finds a letter that isn’t meant to be […]
This is why I love book groups: they draw your attention to books you might otherwise never have discovered. What’s it about? Jenn Ashworth’s debut novel, ‘A kind of Intimacy’, stars Annie, a lonely, obese woman who narrates her increasingly awkward attempts to build a new life and get to know her new neighbours – […]
I have been waiting to read this for almost a year since I first read the blurb, and I was certainly vindicated: it is superb. What’s it about? The story unfolds via two narratives set a week apart in which a race against time develops. In the first chapter, new mum Alice Fancourt describes the […]