What have we been reading?
Blog · Posted April 25, 2024
Here is what our booksellers have been reading this month…
There have been lots of new books and we have been spoilt for choice when it comes to reading. Here is what we have picked up recently and our reviews to entice you to try them for yourselves.
VICKY
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
After her mother dies in childbirth, Red is raised in the world of cartomancy by her father. Or that’s what she’s been led to believe… When her father dies, Red is transformed into Rachel Antrobus after her adopted father Robert brings her to the splendour of regency Bath. But nothing can stop her search for the truth. In this pursuit for justice, Red will meet deception, love, death and danger in a mysterious and epic journey.
Wonderfully-written prose is matched by a brilliant structure, with each chapter taking the form of a fortune told through the Square of Sevens, a future divined by the cards.
Shepherd-Robinson combines the characterisation of Dickens with the sensationalism of Wilkie Collins to create a vivid page-turner. A classic for modern times
Close to Home by Michael Magee | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
It is difficult to choose the right words to describe this book. Beautiful, visceral, brutal, heartbreaking, funny, intimate, necessary and devastating have been used. Close to Home is all this and more.
Sean has to return home to Belfast after finishing his English degree. He slips back into old ways working in nightclubs and descending down a path of drink and drugs. One night he makes a mistake that could change the course of his future and has to deal with the consequences.
With his debut, Michael Magee has achieved something remarkable. From the deepest of traumas, there is hope; within a landscape of violence, there is love. It is a tender study of masculinity and a powerful observation of the author’s own experience growing up in the Belfast that emerged from the Troubles.
Michael Magee is one to watch.
You Are Here by David Nicholls | Hardback Fiction | £20
David Nicholls is master of the will they, won’t they love story. Writing about romance at any stage of life, he always captures the nuances of a relationship perfectly.
Marnie and Michael are both divorced and disillusioned with love. A mutual friend brings them together for Wainwright’s coast to coast walk in what promises to be an unpredictable and heartwarming journey with two hugely relatable characters.
This book celebrates the enjoyment of solitude whilst also raising awareness of the effects of loneliness, especially since emerging from lockdown.
You Are Here is like a warm hug: comforting and familiar. A poignant yet laugh-out-loud love story. David Nicholls has done it again!
The Household by Stacey Halls | Hardback Fiction| £16.99
In Victorian England, it is all too easy for a woman to fall. Based on the lives of real women, The Household takes us inside the establishment founded by Dickens to help those beaten down by society.
As intertwining scandals reach a head, the challenge will be to try and put this book down…(I failed).
An addictive world full of drama and betrayal, but also of solidarity and kindness.
SARAH
Earth by John Boyne | Hardback Fiction | £12.99
Evan has a great talent for football but this was not his dream. His dream was to become an artist and this was what he left his island behind for. However, when art and all other options fall short, he turns to the sport as a last resort. This last resort also leads to him stood before the court, on trial as being an accessory to rape…
The trial and subject matter is tough to get through at times. However, Boyne’s skill as a writer shines through when, despite your dislike for each character with each passing paragraph, you also find yourself sympathising with Evan in some small measure.
Designed to challenge it’s readers and open their eyes to the same scenarios going on in the real world, Boyne’s book leaves you full of reflection. As with Water, the first book in the Elemental series, this book sparks the discussions that we, as a society, need to have. I will continue to break my one per series rule and am thoroughly looking forward to Fire, being published in November.
Sociopath by Patric Gagne | Hardback Non-Fiction | £18.99
I was not entirely sure what to expect from this book but took a chance on it. What I got was an utterly fascinating account of one woman’s diagnosis of being a sociopath and her own dive into psychology to understand what this meant.
Patric Gange reflects on her journey from when she was a little girl to present day and how sociopathy has impacted her life. However, as well as sharing her own personal experience, she uses her book to advocate for misunderstood mental disorders.
Part unapologetic confession and self-reflection, part plea to society to confront its assumptions about mental illness, this is a fast-paced and addictive book that is very easy to fly through the pages of.
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud | Paperback Non-Fiction | £10.99
One of Masud’s core memories as a child is the plains of Lahore that she gets brief glimpses of through a car window and longs to one day escape to.
This sets the scene for the rest of her memoir as she weaves her exploration of flat places throughout the British Isles with her troubled childhood in Pakistan, her move to Scotland when she was 13 and the lasting impact of colonialism. Masud’s incredible talent as a writer lies in her ability to seamlessly bring all of the complex subjects into one book as if they have always belonged together.
From Orkney to Orford Ness, Masud recognises the trauma that each flat place has endured but also the beauty that can be found. She discovers that they mirror her experience of the world.
It could be assumed that this is a bleak book but it is anything but. This is an outstanding and beautifully written memoir that makes you look at geography differently.
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
13 year old Jamie O’Neill is driven by his goals to build a perpetual motion machine and to connect with his mother, who died during childbirth. In his mind, you cannot achieve one without the other.
As he struggles to make sense of the world, and having just started secondary school, it is two teachers – Tess and Tadgh – who help Jamie process these two ambitions and his overwhelming emotions. While neither fully understands how this machine is supposed to help Jamie the way he wants it to, the ripple effect of their empathy and patience sees a community form and friendships – as well as a boat – being built.
This beautiful book is a heartfelt meditation on how we each process grief in our own way and tenderly celebrates human complexity. An uplifting and hopeful read.
ROSAMUND
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
This could almost be described as a campus novel, but right from the start, you know it’s a great deal more sinister than that. Jessica Knoll has taken the chilling story of mass murderer, Ted Bundy, and examined the lives and the world of the young women whose lives he stole either literally or by default.
Pamela is a hardworking, at times amusingly earnest, sorority president who was deemed the luckiest girl alive having escaped the fate of her friends at the hands of a sociopathic murderer. The novel follows her journey, from the extraordinary events in her dorm house where she witnessed the departing figure of a man shortly after he’d wrecked violent havoc, and that of Tina Cannon who believes the same man murdered her best friend.
Part thriller, part fascinating insight to the mores of the time, the story and its manner of telling, grips from the first page.
Becky by Sarah May | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
London in the 90s and the Noughties, the tabloid press are everywhere, as are shoulder pads and sharp elbows. Becky is determined to leave her past behind and enter the gilded world of global media. With the single-minded ambition of her Vanity Fair namesake, she sweeps all before her, getting slightly lost along the way.
Very funny, surprisingly poignant, utterly gripping with a dark underbelly, it’s a treat of a read.
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming | Hardback Non-Fiction | £25 (paperback published 16th may – £12.99)
You know you are in the hands of a master from the first sentence, Laura Cumming is a sublimely elegant writer. With Thunderclap, she has conjured a family memoir and given a masterclass in how to really look at a painting and tease out the truths hidden within.
In 1654 a gunpowder explosion destroyed a large part of the city of Delft, leaving thousands dead including the artist Carel Fabritius, best known today for The Goldfinch, but forgotten for several hundred years in the meantime. A passionate advocate of the art of the Dutch Golden Age, Cumming leads us deeply into the world of her beloved artists, including, most loved of all, her father.
My only sadness is that the audio edition, while read in perfect voice by the author, couldn’t include the paintings, unlike the book itself.
JACK
As Young As This by Roxy Dunn | Hardback Fiction | £16.99
Margot has always believed that each of her romantic partners will eventually whittle down to a husband, and yet, here she is: single again in her mid-thirties. Each chapter recounts a new relationship; from a teenager at a party, to her first real heartbreak, and the gradual complications of love that come with age and maturity.
The time jumps between chapters feel like dropping in on an old friend, with a bittersweet undertone that Margot may be much older when we next see her.
Certain things will forever remind her of lost loves, bearing each like a scar. The ups, downs, beginnings, and breakups are something we all experience; as such, it’s impossible to not see a bit of yourself in Margot. Roxy Dunn has created a beautifully intimate experience. I wanted to read this book forever.
Ascension by Nicholas Binge | Paperback Fiction | £9.99
A mountain has appeared seemingly overnight in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and Dr Harold Tunmore is recruited into a team of scientists to research the phenomenon by a secret organisation. Initially hesitant, Harry is persuaded after discovering his estranged wife is one of the two survivors of the previous expedition. Written as the published compilation of unsent letters to his niece, Ascension logs Harry’s journey as the research team climbs towards the mountain’s peak. But the more they discover, the more questions arise. What happened to the previous group? Why is there an anthropologist with them? What, exactly, is at the top of this mountain?
Fans of Arrival and Torchwood: Children of Earth will understand the concept of a grounded sci-fi, and this is where Ascension also excels. The revelations are peeled away slowly and methodically; there’s an authenticity to how the scientists study the mountain, its geology, and the dilation of time the higher they climb.
As a work of fiction it’s equally effective as a study of human nature in extraordinary circumstances. The fear of the unknown is often subtle but ever-present, and as the characters become increasingly and ferally compelled to climb higher, you find yourself being swept along with them.
Our booksellers love to recommend books and share their favourite reads with other booklovers (it is their job but also their hobby). Our series of review round-ups is a good place to start but if you still need some help, simply pop into the shop, give us a call or shoot us an email.
Find out how to contact us HERE.