Category: Read Selfishly in 2023

Thank Goodness for Books

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Ever since I decided last year not to do a Best Books of the Year thing, I have been thinking a lot about what I wanted my final blog post of 2023 to look like. I am genuinely too knackered to think of anything witty and erudite to say (that’s the joy of full time unpaid caring for you), but I am just awake enough to say that this year I felt like there was some undefinable shift for book bloggers.

Possibly it is because Twitter has felt very different over the past year – a lot like shouting into the void as you endlessly try and tell people that the books you are trying to shout about are really good and you know that so many of you would love it – if only you were able to reach them. Instagram has me baffled constantly, and at 53 I am not enthusiastic enough to do reels and feel too embarrassed to start lip syncing to songs while remembering to hold my book the right way round, so I guess posting pictures of my books against the white of my dining room wall will have to do.

There is absolutely no doubt that the bookish community is as strong and supportive as ever, but I know that lots of us are all having conversations about how different it feels at the moment – something we can’t quite put our fingers on, but I know lots of us feel it.

As always, this is just my opinion, and as always for me writing about how I am feeling helps me to process and understand it – well at least a little. I have been blogging since 2017, and this is the first year, as I have said before that I found this the most personally challenging in terms of caring and book blogging yet.

Not only have I been trying to juggle full time caring, dealing with all the stresses and pressures that brings – no sick days, no breaks and loneliness and isolation like I have never experienced, but also trying to not let down the publicists and publishers by making sure I read and reviewed the books I had promised to do, as well as keeping Years Of Caring going. This proved to be really challenging because ironically I was so busy caring for Eldest Years of Reading that I found it really hard to make the time to read the books and ask authors to be involved!

Anyway, I think what I am trying to say (not very well, so thank you for sticking with me so far!) is that 2023 has made me realise many things, and perhaps most of all how you have to be kind to yourself and accept that sometimes life means that you can’t read lots of books, or as much as you like, and that you absolutely shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

Reading should be a pleasure, a joy, something that gives you that real physical sensation of connection to a book and the words on the pages. Whatever you read, whenever you read, whether it be one page, one chapter or one hundred pages it is your chance to be somewhere else, on your own, even for just a little while. This year, this has meant more to me than I can explain, and having to accept that reading has to fit into my life rather that my life has to fit into my reading schedule has felt like an enormous weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

So I think the one piece of advice I am trying pass on is to remember how much you love reading. Why out of all the things you could be doing, that picking up a book is what you choose to do. How much you love finding yourself in new worlds, losing yourself for a while, that amazing feeling of joy and wonder that comes when you love a book and want everyone you know to read it too. We all read, loved and recommmended books way before we used social media to tell everyone about them, and I know I need to remind myself of that too.

Reading is a way to start conversations, to make friends, to read books that you never would have picked up, to find solace, comfort and joy. The right book at the right time can make you look at the world in a whole new way, and there is nothing like it when you find an author you love with a whole backlist for you to devour. Don’t ever feel embarrassed about telling an author how much you love their writing either, because it means the world to them to know how much their words mean to you.

It can be very easy to feel at times that your bookish worth is measured by how many books you have read, or how fast you can get through them, but honestly, maybe the best judge of it is being able to simply say – do you know what, I read some brilliant books this year, and it doesn’t matter if it is two or two hundred.

I guess what I am trying to say is that no matter how challenging 2023 has been, there have been two constants that have helped make it better – brilliant books and truly brilliant bookish friends, and for that I am and will always be forever grateful to all of you.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Lots of love,

Clare

xxx

73 Dove Street by Julie Owen Moylan

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73 Dove Street by Julie Owen Moylan

Published by Penguin Michael Joseph

What They Say


When Edie Budd arrives at a shabby West London boarding house in October 1958, carrying nothing except a broken suitcase and an envelope full of cash, it’s clear she’s hiding a terrible secret.

And she’s not the only one; the other women of 73 Dove Street have secrets of their own . . .

Tommie, who lives on the second floor, waits on the eccentric Mrs Vee by day. After dark, she harbours an addiction to seedy Soho nightlife – and a man she can’t quit.

Phyllis, 73 Dove Street’s formidable landlady, has set fire to her husband’s belongings after discovering a heart-breaking betrayal – yet her fierce bravado hides a past she doesn’t want to talk about.

At first, the three women keep to themselves.

But as Edie’s past catches up with her, Tommie becomes caught in her web of lies – forcing her to make a decision that will change everything . . .

What I Say

Sometimes in life there are things you can control and things you can’t. When Amanda (@bookishchat) and I read That Green Eyed Girl back in 2022 we knew straight away that we wanted to feature Julie and her brilliant novel on our joint bookish channel Two Fond of Books, because we knew how many people would love it.

We were right, and as soon as we heard that Julie had a second novel coming out called 73 Dove Street, it was without question that we wanted to ask Julie back to Two Fond so we could celebrate the publication and shout about it as much as we could.

What we didn’t anticipate was that personal circumstances would throw us both a huge curve ball, and we would have to take the difficult decision to end Two Fond of Books before we could have the chance to celebrate Julie and 73 Dove Street.

The last few months have been challenging for me to say the least, for reasons that are not important here, but I always knew that I wanted to read 73 Dove Street when I could really stop and savour every page.

I am so glad I picked it up, and so glad I waited til now to read it, because it is a novel that you will be absolutely and totally immersed in from the very first page.

When Edie first arrives at 73 Dove Street clutching her battered cardboard suitcase, it is very clear to us that she is running from something and someone, and that she needs a place to stay so she can disappear for a while. As Edie’s dual narrative unfurls, we see how Edie’s relationship with her husband Frank goes from a seemingly loving one to a world where Frank controls every aspect of her life, and starts to physically and emotionally abuse her.

As Phyllis, the landlady of 73 Dove Street is dealing with her own marital breakdown after her husband Terry cheated on her with one of the tenants, letting Edie have the attic room works for her, and Edie’s appearance is a timely solution to her need for a new lodger. Phyllis is aware of how she is getting older, and becoming invisible to the world, and as her world slowly unravels, we start to understand how the devastating events of the past have shaped her world and her place in it.

Tommie who lives there already seems to be confident and assured – working for Mrs Vee in her huge Bayswater House by day, and at night living life to the fullest. Yet we also see how Tommie is attracted to a man who simply sees her as a commodity to be picked up and put down as he wants – and she can’t see how he will never want anything more from her.

Let’s get two things straight from the start. Julie Owen Moylan has written a novel that puts you right into the heart of 1950’s London. The sights, sounds, description and domestic detail that permeate every page of this story bring this world so vividly to life, and it feels utterly authentic.

The other thing is is that Julie totally understands women and what it meant to be a women at that time. In another writer’s hands, Edie, Tommie and Phyllis could have been paper thin stereotypes, but Julie’s pitch perfect characterisations mean that these women resonate so deeply with us as readers because they are authentic, vulnerable and flawed.

73 Dove Street is a nuanced and intelligent novel, which for me shows how much Julie absolutely understands her characters and also the people who are reading her words. Julie is not afraid to show that life is often not straightforward and that neat and tidy solutions to life’s problems are not always what happens, however much we would like them to be.

Each of the women has undoubtedly been through things in their lives, and what makes them resonate with us is that in 2023 we still recognise that these issues are still prevalent today. Edie, Tommie and Phyllis are women who may be dealing with significantly different things in their lives, but they are united by two things. The painful and difficult awareness of where they are in their lives and how they got there, and the eventual realisation that it is within them to be the catalyst they need to be to make sure that the next part of their lives is going to be entirely in their control. They just have to understand that they need to have the courage to embrace and acknowledge it.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Livvi Thomas and Penguin Michael Joseph for my proof copy.

The Stargazers by Harriet Evans

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The Stargazers by Harriet Evans

Published by Headline on 14th September

Available from All Good Bookshops

What They Say

‘Don’t you think there should be a name for people like us?’ he said. ‘Who look up and who dream of more, who dream of escaping? Who never lose faith, no matter how hard it becomes?’

‘Stargazers,’ I said. ‘That’s what we are’

It’s the 1970s, and Sarah has spent a lifetime trying to bury memories of her childhood: the constant fear, the horror of her school days, and Fane, the vast, crumbling house that was the sole obsession of her mother, Iris, a woman as beautiful as she was cruel. Sarah’s solace has been her cello and the music that allowed her to dream, transporting her from the bleakness of those early years to her new life with her husband Daniel in their safe, if slightly chaotic, Hampstead home and with a concert career that has brought her fame and restored a sense of self.

The past, though, has a habit of creeping into the present, and as long as Sarah tries to escape, it seems the pull of her mother, Fane Hall and the secrets hidden there cannot be suppressed, threatening to unravel the fragile happiness she enjoys now. Sarah will need to travel back to Fane to confront her childhood, and search for the true meaning of home.

Deliciously absorbing and rich with character and atmosphere, The Stargazers is the story of a house, a family, and finding the strength inside yourself to carry on.

What I Say

I deliberately made sure that I started The Stargazers on a Friday, and gave myself a whole weekend to read it, because I knew from the start that this would be one of those novels that you can absolutely lose yourself in, and I wanted to savour every page.

This is a complex and thoughtful novel, in which Harriet deftly and pointedly deals with the idea of family and belonging, of what it means to be a mother when you have no idea what that is meant to look like, and learning to realise and accept that family is not always a picture perfect concept.

The novel opens with a young married couple, Daniel and Sarah, moving into an old house on The Row near Hampstead Heath. Daniel is effusive and optimistic about their new life, whereas Sarah seems more cautious and wary of the immense project this house will be for them.

As Daniel immediately ingratiates himself with his neighbours, Sarah feels more isolated, worried that her husband is more concerned with being with other people than their marriage.

Right from the start we become aware that Sarah has not had an easy life, and there are little clues that lead us to understand that to get to this point she has already endured a lot. The novel opens up into a dual timeline, focussing on her childhood with her sister Victoria and her mother Iris in the 1950’s, and her life with Daniel in the 1970’s.

Young Sarah and Victoria live with their mother Iris in a flat in Kensington, but make no mistake, this is not some safe and wonderful childhood, peppered with fond memories and a sense of comfort and calm. Iris is filled with anger and hate, seeing the children as an annoyance and a distraction and is openly abusive and neglectful towards them.

Iris is driven by the fact that she believes that they were wrongly forced to leave Fane Hall, her family home, by her Uncle Clive who is the Earl. Sarah and Victoria lived with their mother there as young children. When their grandfather died Uncle Clive inherited Fane Hall, because as a woman, Iris couldn’t. The family waits for Clive to come back to claim his estate, and Iris believes that once Uncle Clive arrives, they will all be able to live in Fane Hall as one happy family, Uncle Clive has very different ideas. When he and his wife Dotty arrive, Iris and her daughters are shunted off to a shabby flat in Kensington, and Iris is hellbent on ensuring she gets the house back – whatever the cost.

Then one day, she simply decides she is going to get Fane Hall back, and moves the girls and herself in to one of the wings. The house is in a terrible state, falling into disrepair and a far cry from its heyday, and similarly Uncle Clive is an angry and desolate old man, furious that Iris has moved back, determined to gain control of Fane Hall again.

It is only when Sarah meets a local boy nicknamed Bird Boy that she truly feels happy. Together they spend time looking after an injured barn owl called Stella that Sarah rescues, and looking up at the sky to see the stars and planets above them, that provides the peace and escape from her awful home situation that Sarah craves. From the very first moment they meet, they have an implicit understanding of each other, and their connection means they can be honest with each other – something they both can’t be in their everyday lives.

As the two adults battle for control of Fane Hall, Sarah and Victoria are forgotten and then sent off to a dilapidated boarding school where Victoria thrives, and Sarah doesn’t – until she discovers the cello, which gives her focus and distraction from her everyday life. Yet when the school bullies become involved in her cello lessons – including Victoria, Sarah’s world will change forever in ways she could never have imagined.

As we the narrative moves on, adult Sarah feels trapped by motherhood, feeling that she doesn’t know what she should be doing and is overwhelmed by it. Resentful that Daniel seems unaffected and living his life as he always has, Sarah’s love for playing the cello becomes something she can only dream of as she spends her days caught up in making sure that her two daughters and everyone else is looked after, while her own needs and desires are subsumed under the mountain of domestic chaos that is all around her.

It is only when Sarah and Daniel face an unimaginable event, that Sarah finally sees how much of a mother she is, and that her relationship with her own mother and sister has not defined her, but has in fact made her the woman she is today. With a new sense of understanding, Sarah is finally able to articulate what she needs to feel happy, and find the strength and confidence to live the life she deserves.

The Stargazers is such an emotionally rich and satisfying novel, that never feels stretched, and Harriet’s tender and masterful prose shows how connected she really is to both the characters and the ever present Fane Hall, which is not the backdrop to this story, but is instead the very beating heart of this book. This should have been the place to make Sarah and Victoria feel safe, their mother’s determination to own it means that for them their mother and Fane Hall embody everything they want to forget.

Iris is an unforgettable and unlikeable character, whose real motives for getting Fane Hall back are slowly revealed through the narrative. Although her treatment of her daughters can never be condoned, as Harriet skilfully peels back the history of this woman, as a reader you can start to understand exactly what motivates her. Her actions and intent speak for themselves, but at the same time as a reader you see a frustrated and angry woman whose whole existence is determined by getting back her house, as oppose to paying any attention to the daughters who are bewildered by the behaviour of the woman who is their mother.

Harriet absolutely understands her characters, and I loved how they were vulnerable, flawed, and all searching for the very thing that eludes them – a sense of family and home. It is only when Vic and Sarah have that distance from their mother and each other that they finally come to terms with what family means to them, and how they can navigate their own worlds in the best way they can.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Rosie Margesson and Headline for my proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

O Brother By John Niven from Canongate Books

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O Brother By John Niven

Published by Canongate Books on 24 August

What They Say

John Niven’s little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. In 2010, after years of chaotic struggle against the world, he took his own life at the age of 42.

Hoping for the best while often witnessing the worst, John, his younger sister Linda and their mother, Jeanette, saw the darkest fears they had for Gary played out in drug deals, prison and bankruptcy. While his life spiralled downward and the love the Nivens’ shared was tested to its limit, John drifted into his own trouble in the music industry, a world where excess was often a marker of success.

Tracking the lives of two brothers in changing times – from illicit cans of lager in 70s sitting rooms to ecstasy in 90s raves – O Brother is a tender, affecting and often uproariously funny story. It is about the bonds of family and how we try to keep the finest of those we lose alive. It is about black sheep and what it takes to break the ties that bind. Fundamentally it is about how families survive suicide, ‘that last cry, from the saddest outpost.’

What I Say

There are different ways you come to read books – some you read as soon as they are in your house, others linger on your shelves until you find them again or you decide that it’s what you want to read at that time. O Brother had arrived at my house a couple of weeks before, and when I was trapped in my dining room with my dog and my oldest son – (long story, boring anecdote) I picked it up, started reading, and just couldn’t stop.

The story starts with John being told that his younger brother Gary is in hospital in Irvine, Ayrshire. After ringing the emergency services, telling them he had been trying to kill himself, Gary was taken to hospital. After being assessed, Gary was placed alone in a room where he attempted suicide again. He was induced into a medical coma, and the family are faced with the realisation that he may never wake up, or that if he does, the brain damage he has suffered would mean that Gary’s family would have to look after him for the rest of his life.

To understand how Gary and John’s life has come to this point, John goes back to his childhood, to tell the story of the two brothers, and later of his sister Linda, and a compelling and heartbreaking story emerges from the two seemingly very different brothers. They are inseparable when younger, both of them getting up to things that will make every parent who reads it (and every child who has done something they know they shouldn’t) wince in recognition. As the two boys grow up, it is clear that their lives will take very different paths – John into the music industry, Gary into a world that involves drug dealing and the occasional carpentry job.

Yet both men are flawed, hellbent on pleasing themselves while causing worry for those closest to them, but John eventually makes the decision to stop and change his life when he realises he is now responsible for a family. Gary meanwhile, although a father and in a relationship, can’t settle, and deals with prison and drug and mental health issues – and when offered help, doesn’t turn up for appointments. In spite of the tireless work by the mental health team, Gary repeatedly goes it alone. The relationship between the brothers and between Gary and his family becomes strained – punctuated by Gary wanting money and help from his family, and the frustrations they feel as they attempt to live their own lives, while constantly on edge, waiting for the next incident they have to get involved in.

At no point does John depict himself or his family as the saviours, the ones who sweep in and save Gary, and this is what makes this memoir even more relatable – because these are normal people dealing with an extraordinarily difficult situation. You absolutely understand how challenging and complex this was for everyone involved, and that although the family may be geographically distant, they are all united by the familial bonds that keeps them together through all the life changing events they endure.

It would also have been easy to demonise Gary, as the unreliable and unlikeable sibling, but John depicts his brother with compassion and tenderness, acknowledging that there are many sides to his brother. Gary loved being the centre of attention, and was mischievous and funny. Yet he could also be cruel, violent, and testing, demanding everyone’s time and money, and causing untold heartache for them all.

Perhaps in writing this memoir, it gave John the chance to reflect not only on the life his brother had led, but also to process his own emotions about what it means to lose someone who decides that the family you are part of is not a strong enough reason to want to live. I can’t imagine what that must be like for anyone, but in reading this book, I feel that I understand so much more about it, and can see the incredible resilience and dignity that John, his Mum and Linda have in dealing with it all.

O Brother is one of the most affecting memoirs I have ever read, ostensibly because John is talking about something that touches us all – what it means to love your family. However complicated, layered or marvellous our family is – we know it is the connections and emotional shorthand we all have, and the fact we so often take it for granted. The in jokes, the nick names, the shared memories, the mundane but necessary evenings in front of the telly, and the times when we couldn’t be closer, and those when we are far apart.

The last chapter completely broke me, and I defy anyone not to be incredibly moved by it. John perfectly captures the culmination and celebration of a life that ended too soon, and the hope that we all have, in reading O Brother, that in death, Gary could finally find the peace and comfort he could not find in life.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Anna Frame and Canongate Books for my copy.

My Summer of Reading Selfishly

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A Woman Reading in the Woods, 1959 (Life magazine)

I had my Summer Reading all perfectly planned.

A stack of books, selected, piled, all ready for an introduction on Twitter (refuse to call it X), a lovely filtered picture on Instagram and a cheeky post on Threads. There is so much bookish stuff going on – the Booker Prize Longlist, the notabene prize Shortlist, the Diverse Book Awards, the fabulous Women In Translation month, not to mention the books that are coming out in August and all the ones I haven’t managed to read and review yet, and don’t get me started on the books sat on my bookshelf glaring at me..

I don’t know what happened, I sat looking at them all and I just felt completely overwhelmed.

I always feel when you announce to the world “These are the books I want to read this summer”, that there is an obligation to read them all – even if you don’t really love them, because you have put it out there, and as a book blogger, I always try to do what I say!

I ended up with a full on case of The Dreaded Book Slump, not wanting to read anything at all, and instead spent my days watching re-runs of Real Housewives and sat staring at my books.

So this Summer, I am trying to do something a bit different. It might not be for everyone, but for me, I know that with everything else I have going on (hello real life!), that I need to stay interested and feel that reading is a pleasure, not a bookish chore I need to get through – otherwise those Real Housewives are going to get watched a LOT.

This Summer is going to be my Summer Of Reading Selfishly, and if you have read this far, thank you, and you are probably (hopefully) wondering what it means, and whether you could do it too.

I have picked a new pile of books to read over the Summer – in fact, as I write this blog post, they are sat on the table in front of me, and I have decided that I am not going to share what they are.

I am not setting myself any deadlines, I might post a review if I feel like it – although am not quite sure where works anymore – but that’s a whole other blog post. If I love the book I have read – I will tell you about it, if it’s not for me, I won’t say a word, and move on to the next one.

For me, that’s the best bit – this is a win win for everyone! I shout about books I love, the authors know I love their books, and if I read a book from my stack that I don’t love, I just put it down and move onto the next one – and no one knows. More importantly, I don’t feel under any pressure to read and review everything I have in my pile – because I am the only one who knows what’s on there.

So for this August, that’s my Summer Reading sorted, and honestly, for the first time in a long time I am looking forward to just reading for the sake of it. I might even start to remember a time when I used to read without thinking about how I would review it!

One thing is for sure, I promise to let you all know when I read a brilliant book – and here’s to my Summer of Reading Selfishly.

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

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Take What You Need by Idra Novey

Published by Daunt Books Originals

on 3rd August 2023

Available from All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition.

But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history.

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most, zeroing in on the joys and difficulties of family with great verve and humour, and illuminating what can be built from what others have discarded.

What I Say

There are novels that when published, seem to be everywhere, with so many people shouting about them, that often there are quiet novels of pure brilliance that don’t get the attention they truly deserve. I hope that Take What You Need really does find its way onto your bookish radar, because I think it should be front and centre on your reading lists.

In Take What You Need Idra Novey perfectly articulates the complexities and realities of living in modern America while the world beyond your four walls, and the people you love change beyond your control.

Jean and Leah are stepmother and daughter, who are now living in different parts of the country after Jean had to live the familial home when Leah was only ten. Although Leah’s father tried to discourage their relationship, they stayed in touch via sporadic emails and phone calls. Leah is now living in New York with her husband and young son, while Jean lives in Appalachia, a place ravaged by poverty and addiction. When Leah receives a phone call from a stranger, telling her that Jean has died and left her artwork to her, Leah and her husband undertake the journey to the Allegheny Mountains with their young son.

After a life of working, Jean had devoted herself to her art, and used steel and lots of different ephemera that she collected from flea markets and wherever she could to create her works she called her ‘manglements’ – a body of work that ranges from small boxes to huge totem pole sizes that she has inside her house.

When Jean’s neighbour asks to use her stand pipe so she can get water for her family after theirs is cut off, it is then she meets their son Elliott. Realising how little money the family has, she starts to offer him food and the use of her shower. After Elliott helps Jean when she has an accident making her art, they start a tentative friendship, and Elliott starts to help Jean construct her artwork. Jean sees a young man constrained by his environment, who has the potential to change his life – if only he can see it – and this is part of the backdrop of this novel, the very different lives that play out when you do or don’t have the financial means to survive.

All the time Jean is also thinking of Leah, and when a visit from her goes spectacularly wrong – with both women describing very different perceptions of what happened, the relationship breaks down again. Jean is alone, with only her art for company, and Elliott is becoming more and more distant as he becomes an addict, starts to turn to theft and is thrown out of his family home. Leah finds it difficult to understand how Jean can possibly want to speak to Elliott after everything he has put her through, but Jean instinctively understands that this is a young man who never stood a chance as the world around him collapses and pulls him under with it.

The narrative moves effortlessly between Jean and Leah, both women aware of the closeness they have lost, and realising that if only they can find the words, they could once again have the relationship they both miss so much. I felt it was also a way for Idra to show the reader two very different experiences of living in America, at a time when the MAGA movement and Donald Trump’s presidency is a reality, and we are constantly aware of the socioeconomic backdrop to the plot. Elliott’s trajectory is one that is all too familiar and harrowing, yet there is also a humanity and need for connection that means he cannot let Jean go, as he recognises that she saw him as a person with potential, and although he doesn’t always know how to deal with it, he eventually understands the emotional debt he owes her.

Take What You Need is a beautiful and thoughtful novel about how art intersects with so many parts of our lives, and how powerful and life changing it can be. This is also a novel about how sometimes family is not necessarily those people you are related to, but instead can be found in those people who understand and love you for what you are and the potential they can see in you. Jean understands both Leah and Elliott completely, and although they are seemingly disparate characters, it is Jean’s love and desire for both of them to fulfill their potential that unites them after she is no longer in their lives.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jimena Gorraez and Daunt Publishing for my proof copy

Seventeen by Joe Gibson

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Seventeen by Joe Gibson

Published by Gallery UK and Simon and Schuster on 20 July

Available from all Good Bookshops

What They Say

It’s 1992. Like every other seventeen-year-old boy, Joe has one eye on his studies, the other on his social life – smoking, Britpop, girls. He’s looking ahead to a gap year full of travel and adventure before university when his teacher – attractive, mid-thirties – takes an interest in him. It seems like a fantasy come true.  

For his final two years at school, he is bound to her, a woman twice his age, in an increasingly tangled web of coercion, sex and lies. Their affair, a product of complex grooming and a shocking abuse of authority, is played out in the corridors of one of Britain’s major private schools, under the noses of people who suspected, even knew, but said nothing. 

Thirty years on, this is Joe’s gripping record of the illicit relationship that dominated his adolescence and dictated the course of his life. With a heady dose of nineties nostalgia and the perfectly captured mood of those final months at school, Joe charts the enduring legacy of deceit and the indelibility of decisions made at seventeen. 

What I Say

You may have seen on my Twitter feed that I talked about a book that had stopped me in my tracks, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I read it (you can possibly tell by the number of post its in my copy in the picture!)

Lots of people were curious to know, and so today, I can tell you that the book I am talking about is called Seventeen. It is a memoir written by Joe Gibson (this is a pseudonym), which tells the story of Joe, as a seventeen year old, who had an affair with his thirty five year old teacher called Miss P.

Joe was awarded a bursary to study at a private school which was 150 miles away from his parents. They sorted out accommodation for him with some family friends, who were caring people, but basically left Joe to do what he wanted to do. He finds a group of friends quite quickly, and settles into school life, but then discovers that his Dad is leaving and his mum and dad are getting divorced.

Understandably upset, and realising how far away from home he is, he goes to a pub to drown his sorrows. It is there he bumps into Miss P, who listens to and comforts him and Joe realises that he is attracted to his teacher.

One evening Miss P asks him to help her tidy up the classroom, and they eventually end up at her flat where they drink wine together and kiss. Very quickly, this turns into a fully blown affair, and Joe, although he knows this is his teacher, and this is not right, realises that he loves Miss P – or Ali, as she now becomes to him.

Joe’s seventeen year old voice comes through very clearly throughout the memoir. He at times seems almost proud of their relationship, their sex life, and relishing the time they spend together, desperate to see her again, yet also still having to be the person his friends know. He has to be the seventeen year old they know – half listening to his friends as they debate which girls in their classes they fancy, trying to maintain the facade of a normal student, but harbouring this secret that he knows would blow his whole world apart if it ever comes out. So he says nothing.

What becomes clear to the reader very quickly is that this is not an equal relationship. Miss P controls every aspect of it – she devises the most incredible plans, comes up with the complicated and seemingly safe logistics to make sure that they can see each other, but also making sure little by little that Joe is entirely under her control. Miss P decides when and where they can see each other, she ignores him for periods at school, and taunts him about being a school boy when it seems that he is trying to think for himself.

As they become more and more involved, Joe distances himself from his friends and family, his school work starts to suffer, and his hopes of going to Oxford slip from his grasp. At the same time, his relationship with Ali intensifies, and her insistence that they spend time together in increasingly dangerous ways are to be honest, jaw dropping to say the least. Joe is so far entrenched in this relationship that he can’t see what we all can – that he is powerless, and entirely under Miss P’s control.

Seventeen honestly reads like fiction -as if Joe and Miss P are characters in a novel that you read, talk about and put on a shelf. Of course this is a memoir, these are real people, and their lives still go on. One of the most incredible parts of Joe’s story is what happens to the relationship – and no, I’m not going to tell you what that is.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Seventeen when I read it because I have so many questions. Why Joe? Had she done it before? Why didn’t the friends she told report her? What was her motive for getting involved with Joe? Was Ali telling the truth about her past relationships at all?

Yet something else supersedes all that, because I keep thinking about my seventeen year old son and what it would be like for him if it happened to him, and that is what Joe illustrates so clearly. At the very heart of all this, we need to understand that Joe is a seventeen year old school boy, and Miss P is his thirty five year old teacher.

It should never have happened, but it did, and if Seventeen does one thing, it made me start a conversation with my own son about what had happened to Joe, and how that behaviour from an adult is never acceptable. We also learn that it wasn’t until 2000 that it became illegal for a teacher to have a sexual relationship with a 16 or 17 year old – which makes you wonder how many times this story played out in other schools, and what happened to those people whose stories we may never know.

This is why I think it’s such a thought provoking memoir, because it made me stop and think about how I communicate with my son – when Joe was seventeen, there wasn’t social media and mobile phones, you had to either use the home phone or find a pay phone to contact someone, or even go physically to see them. Here and now, our teenagers are so busy looking down, connected to a world we can’t access, it is harder and harder to really find out what is happening in their lives, and that is why Seventeen is such an important book.

Now more than ever we need to be present for teenagers, to make sure that Joe’s story is something that can’t happen again. Joe says in the acknowledgements that he hopes by finding his voice seventeen years later, and articulating his experience that he can encourage other people to do the same. I think Joe has also started a timely conversation about power and control and needing to make sure that in a time of digital communication where we aren’t party to everything that happens on a screen that we don’t forget about simply talking to and listening to our children too to make sure Joe’s story is not repeated.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Sabah Khan at Simon and Schuster for my finished copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

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The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

Published by Michael Joseph on 20th July

Available from all Good Bookshops

What They Say

The whispers started long before the accident on Harlow Street . . .
Was it at the party, when Whitney screamed blue murder at her son?
Or after neighbour Blair started prowling Whitney’s house, uninvited?
Or once Rebecca and Ben’s childlessness finally puts a crack in their marriage?
But on the terrible night of the accident, the whispers grow louder, more insistent.
Neighbours gather round. Questions are asked. Secrets are spilled. And the gloss on everything begins to rub off. Everyone is drawn into the darkness.
Because there’s no smoke without fire.
No friendship without envy.
And no lie that does not conceal a devastating truth . .

What I Say

You might have already read Ashley’s first novel, The Push – which quickly found its place as one of my favourite books.

When I was asked if I would like a proof of The Whispers, of course I said yes, but there is always that slight concern that it won’t be so brilliant, and then how do you review it?

Readers, let me tell you, I think The Whispers is even better.

This is a novel which puts motherhood and relationships front and centre. What does it mean to be a mother? What does society expect from mothers? Does it mean losing ourselves as we strive to make sure that our children’s needs are always the most important, and what if you don’t fit the template that everyone expects you to?

With Whitney, Blair and Rebecca, we see three very different women living in the same street, all dealing with motherhood and their relationships in very different ways.

Whitney feels overwhelmed by motherhood, and instead spends as much time as she can out of the house at her business, leaving the parenting to her husband and anyone else, revealing how dull and boring she finds it, resentful of all the mundanity and routine it brings.

Her best friend Blair is the complete opposite, her world is her daughter, and her own wants and needs have been subsumed by her daughter and husband. Yet Blair is not fulfilled either, is desperately lonely, and yearns for something that is her own. Blair slowly starts to suspect that her husband is having an affair – with Whitney.

Rebecca is an ER Doctor, and in spite of trying, is unable to carry a child to full term. Although originally she wanted to stop trying, she now wants to have a child with her husband. As they try to conceive, the gap between them becomes wider, and Rebecca feels that her marriage is failing.

Whitney undoubtedly seems to have the world and her neighbours in her picket fence perfect suburb of Harlow Street at her beck and call. Until one day at a party held in her home, they hear her screaming at her son, Xavier. A few months later, Xavier is in a coma, having apparently fallen from his bedroom window, and as she rushes to his bedside, seemingly bereft, his accident shows us exactly who Whitney really is. and little by little, the seemingly perfect facade of Harlow Street slowly cracks to show us exactly what secrets the residents are hiding.

As the events leading up to Xavier’s fall start to become clearer, and the women’s lives start to unravel before us, you understand that each of these women have one thing in common – that they have put the needs of others first, and that although on the surface they seem content, very slowly you understand that each of them is burying the anger and resentment that they feel, because to show it outwardly would deem them as socially unacceptable.

Ashley Audrain’s incisive and intelligent writing reflects this. If all these women were perfect examples of motherhood – then we wouldn’t engage with them, and the story would feel vacuous. It is the very fact that these women articulate what so many of us express privately is what makes us feel a connection with them. They are not perfect, they are vulnerable and at times bewildered by a world that judges them for their ability to conform to standards that are old fashioned and unforgiving.

The power of this novel also comes from the way in which the plot moves along at a rapid pace, but never feels forced or contrived. Ashley knows that in order for us to engage with and care about the characters, that there has to be a distinct line between scintillating plot twists and truthful character portrayals, and in The Whispers, she achieves this perfectly.

The Whispers is a brilliantly constructed and effortlessly plotted novel that once you start reading you cannot put it down. Ashley absolutely understands not only the dynamics and pressures of families, but also the complicated and sometimes limiting roles we find ourselves in as partners and parents. As the novel draws to its conclusion, Blair and Rebecca find the confidence to determine what they want from their lives, putting themselves first. We also sense that Whitney will finally get the chance to be the mother she realises she wants to be, but be prepared, because life is never that straightforward is it?

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jen Breslin for my proof copy.

brother do you love me by Manni Coe and Reuben Coe

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brother do you love me by Manni Coe and Reuben Coe

Published by Little Toller

Available from Little Toller Website and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Reuben, aged 38, was living in a home for adults with learning disabilities. He hadn’t established an independent life in the care system and was still struggling to accept that he had Down’s syndrome. Depressed and in a fog of anti-depressants, he hadn’t spoken for over a year. The only way he expressed himself was by writing poems or drawing felt-tip scenes from his favourite West End musicals and Hollywood films. Increasingly isolated, cut off from everyone and everything he loved, Reuben sent a text message: ‘brother. do. you. love. me.’ When Manni received this desperate message from his youngest brother, he knew everything had to change. He immediately left his life in Spain and returned to England, moving Reuben out of the care home and into an old farm cottage in the countryside. In the stillness of winter, they began an extraordinary journey of repair, rediscovering the depths of their brotherhood, one gradual step at a time. Combining Manni’s tender words with Reuben’s powerful illustrations, their story of hope and resilience questions how we care for those we love, and demands that, through troubled times, we learn how to take better care of each other.

What I Say

I have really struggled with writing a review of brother do you love me. The reason being is that I want to share endless paragraphs and pages and chapters with you, to show you how brilliant Manni’s writing is, and how perfectly Reuben’s words and illustrations show us what their relationship means to them. This is a memoir that is quite unlike any I have read, and it moved me deeply.

Manni was living in Spain as a tour guide, and his brother Reuben who has Down’s Syndrome was living in a residential home. Reuben sent Manni a text message that read ‘brother.do.you.love.me’. As soon as he read that message, Manni knew that his brother needed him, and that Reuben had to be out of that care home as soon as possible. When Reuben moved in with Manni in a cottage in the UK, Manni was shocked to see how far his brother had regressed physically and emotionally, and was desperate to get his brother back.

This is a memoir not only of the incredible bond that Manni and Reuben have, and how their love for each other transcends the frustrating limitations that the professionals tried to constrain their world with, but is also a book about the realities of caring for a family member when you know exactly what they need even if those in positions of power disagree.

Their situation is further complicated by the fact that Manni’s partner Jack is in Spain, and the rest of their family are spread throughout the world, so even though everyone is involved and supporting them, Manni is the one dealing with all the day to day decisions and being the support for Reuben on his own. What echoes throughout the book is the fact that on one hand, for Manni, having your brother who is also your best friend, living with you is the best thing, but at the same time caring for Reuben and trying to help him regain his confidence as well as dealing with all the people and teams who are involved is also incredibly exhausting and isolating. I know from my own experience that you spend so much of your time convincing the people making the decisions that honestly, yes, you really do know your family member so much better than the snapshot they have gleaned from all the forms and phone calls you have been forced to repeat time and time again.

One of the elements of the book which I think will resonate with many people, is the way in which Manni describes the realities of the social care system in the U.K. It is one stretched to its limits, with those people who use it often become little more than a set of initials moving from team to team as decisions are made sometimes with the family involved, and sometimes not. One of the worst things (and I am speaking from personal experience) is how often you find someone who absolutely understands the person you are caring for, and what they need to thrive, only to have them move on or leave, and you are left either without no one, or a new person that you have to explain everything to – never quite sure if you have said the right thing, or told them enough, or too much.

As Manni tells their story, he weaves his family’s narrative in effortlessly, as we learn everything about their family, from their childhood in Leeds, to the rift that happens when Manni tells his religious family that he is gay, to their reconciliation – and always at the heart of the story is the love and determination that the family and their friends have to ensure that Reuben is happy and living the life that he wants. In doing this, Manni also subtly shows us the difference between the Reuben of those times, and all the things they did together, and the Reuben who is now a very different man. Manni perfectly articulates not only the all consuming love you feel for the person you care for, but also the ingrained hope and desire you have for them to be accepted by the world and for them to live the life they want, rather than the life that others feel they deserve.

The book is also filled with the art that Reuben has produced, which adds an intensely personal and emotional element to the book, and Reuben also talks about having Down’s Syndrome and what that means to him. We learn how he feels about the world around him, as well his own hopes and dreams for his future. I think it’s one of the most important parts of this book, that Reuben’s voice and identity are so clear and we learn so much about him and his personality, and his relationships with his family and friends.

I wanted to finish my review by saying thank you to Manni and Reuben, who helped me think about my own situation and my own relationship with my son, who has a range of special needs, and I am his full time carer.

I know am guilty of doing too much for him, for sometimes treating him like a child at times even though he is twenty two, and for thinking I know how he feels, and not really trying to make him do any more than I think he can cope with. Hearing how Manni and Reuben talk together, and Reuben talking about himself and his identity have really helped me reassess how I relate to my son, and has opened up a whole new world for us, and for that, I can’t thank them enough.

I don’t often say this, but please try and read this book however you can. #BrotherDoYouLoveMe is not only an incredible testament to the love that Manni and Reuben have for each other, but is also a book that absolutely captures the realities of caring for a family member, and how important it is to ensure that what they want and deserve is always at the front and centre of every decision that is made.

I absolutely loved it.

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

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Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Published by Penguin Viking on 2nd March 2023

Available From All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged . . .

What I Say

There are some authors who quite simply are auto read authors. For me Liz Nugent is one of them, because her brilliant writing where the domestic and the macabre are mixed together effortlessly, propel you into a world that is absolute proof of the saying that you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Strange Sally Diamond starts with Sally throwing out her Dad’s body with the rubbish – because that is what he told her to do. From the opening paragraph, it is obvious to see that Sally is an unconventional protagonist, and that her literal translations of instructions, distance from the world outside and her awkwardness with people and social interactions mean that Sally is very much walking her own path in the world.

When the family doctor Angela discovers what Sally has done, having known Sally and her family for years, she steps in as Sally’s protector, navigating both the legal and personal minefield that Sally now finds herself in. As we fall deeper into Sally’s world, what becomes patently obvious is that from the moment she was born, Sally’s life has been a traumatic and incredible one, which means her own self awareness and understanding of what she has had to navigate leads her to deal with the world around her in a way that she feels she is in control.

Left alone in her family home, Sally starts to unravel her own history, and discovers how she became a member of the Diamond family – and with it, a whole barrage of secrets and things never told start spilling into Sally’s life. When Sally starts to receive mysterious presents, and messages she doesn’t understand, the past that she has no recollection of starts seeping into her present.

Little by little, as the narrative weaves backwards and forwards, and by the introduction of the character of Peter into the text, we are slowly able to see exactly what happened not only to Sally’s mother, but also the awful reality of what their life was like at the hands of her father.

As always, I think it is important to let you know that Strange Sally Diamond has some very dark themes that run through this novel, there is domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse, and a prevalent theme is paedophilia. While this is undoubtedly a very difficult and challenging novel to read, Liz’s incredible skill as a writer means that these are all tackled with extreme sensitivity, and the way in which they are the backbone of the narrative never feels anything other than absolutely integral to the plot and understanding what has brought Sally and Peter to this point in their story.

I thought it was interesting to see how Sally develops as a character as the narrative moves on, and how everything we do so easily and take for granted are huge victories for her. The confidence she gains comes from working with her therapist, and her own motivation to finally embrace the world she has been detached from for such a long time. Liz’s depiction of Sally always feels that it comes from a place of compassion and curiosity, wanting us to understand that this woman has endured so much, but in learning to process her past and know that people can be trusted, that a new world is waiting for her – which can be an amazing thing, or something that brings complications that no one could have envisaged.

Strange Sally Diamond is a novel that perfectly balances the gradual development of Sally’s character once she allows herself to open up to the world around her, set against the incredibly challenging history and life she has lived in a way that feels measured and controlled – much like Sally herself. It is a novel that show us the darkest and most macabre stories of human existence and survival are often so much closer to us than we could ever possibly realise. Liz Nugent brings us into Sally’s world so completely that as we are witness to every small victory and devastating setback she faces, and all the time want only for her to finally be able to embrace the normal life so many of us take for granted every day.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jasmin Lindenmeir and Ellie Hudson at Penguin Viking for my gifted proof copy.