Tag: Debut Novels

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

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The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

Published by Hutchinson Heinemann on February 15th

What They Say

Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family Down South.

Because of the murders.

Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking.
Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all?

So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t.

But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families – and between each other – than they ever thought possible.

What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home?

What I Say

It is always brilliant to be able to review books by authors that you have met and become friends with on social media, which is quite ironic, considering that in The List of Suspicious Things we are firmly in a world way before anyone even knew what a mobile phone or Twitter is!

I had been chatting to Jennie for while – usually about all the fabulous books we have been reading, and sharing recent recommendations of books we loved. When I was offered a copy of Jennie’s debut novel to read and review, honestly, I was more than a little nervous – it is a Radio 2 Book Club pick, and already there have been so many wonderful reviews, that there is always the worry that I might not love it.

Once I started reading The List of Suspicious Things, I just knew that I was reading something really special.

Miv, and her best friend Sharon are growing up in the late 70s. Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister, and The Yorkshire Ripper dominates every news story and headline. Miv lives with her Mum and Dad and Aunty Jean. Her Mum keeps herself to herself, often in her bedroom and then disappears from their house for periods of time, with no one really explaining to Miv what is happening.

Miv’s Dad seems unsettled and not himself, and decides that maybe the best thing for the family is to move down South away from The Yorkshire Ripper and all the uncertainty and unrest around them. Miv is devastated and doesn’t want to move away, so the solution to her is perfectly clear – if she can discover who The Yorkshire Ripper is, she can stay here, with her best friend Sharon and nothing has to change.

Sharon agrees to help, and as Miv pours over the newspapers and listens to news about The Yorkshire Ripper, she decides that she and Sharon have to investigate anyone who fits any part of the profile. This is a brilliant way to change the narrative, because this opens up Miv and Sharon’s world for us to meet the people in their community who make their list, but also shows us that what we have always known is true – that appearances can be deceptive, and you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

As Miv and Sharon investigate the people and things they have hunches about, we are introduced to a range of characters – amongst them there is Omar who runs the local shop and his son Ishtiaq, Helen and Gary Andrews who seem to be a happily married couple, and Arthur, who is Helen’s Dad and dealing with the death of his wife.

Jennie’s writing harks back to a time when all our lives were contained in the small world of the streets and places and people we knew so well, and we were reliant on who had seen and heard what to find out what was happening. Yet it has to be said that this is not a cosy, uncomplicated and innocent novel, mired in nostalgia and a rose tinted view of life.

The List of Suspicious Things is also a novel that unflinchingly shows a world where there is racism, domestic violence, mental health issues and marital affairs. This is a world presented to us through the eyes of children, who see and hear these things, but do not fully understand the intricacies and realities of what they are party to. Their innocence and seeming naivety presents us with a different view of the world, whereas we as readers, and the adults in the story bring our own experiences and knowledge of the realities of what the children are actually going through.

This is such a layered and nuanced novel that deals with so many things in one book, all executed effortlessly. Undoubtedly the main focus of the novel is the project that Miv and Sharon are undertaking, as to whether they can find the true identity of The Yorkshire Ripper, but this is not singularly why this is such an unforgettable book.

What makes this book so compelling for me to read is the portrayal of family life and the wider community, in all its shapes and forms. I felt that Jennie absolutely understood all her characters and their voices are clear and distinct. You get a real sense of place and time without it being something that detracts from the plot, and it makes the book feel anchored and authentic. Miv is such a brilliant protagonist, fearless and questioning and also aware that her family life is not like other people’s. Her relationship with her Mum is genuinely heartbreaking. – she knows what it should look like, and there are little moments in the book that shows us how much Miv understands that whatever happens her Mum is still there, trying to find a way back to being the Mum Miv needs. Miv is undoubtedly the pivotal character in this novel, and it is her relationships with the people around her that makes this such a compelling story.

In becoming part of Miv and Sharon’s world, we are also looking back at a time that some of us can remember clearly – that sense of growing up in a world where human connection was part of our everyday lives, with no phones or social media to colour our opinions. Our world at that time went as far as the streets around us, the neighbours we knew and the conversations we heard. The List of Suspicious Things is an unforgettable book that perfectly articulates what it meant to be a child at that time, and in doing so may make us realise how far we have come, but also how much we have lost in terms of having that close community around us.

Do Miv and Sharon find out who The Yorkshire Ripper was? Of course I am not going to tell you, you need to read it. One thing is certain though, that I promise after reading The List Of Suspicious Things, Miv and Sharon will always have a place in your heart.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Hutchinson Heinemann for my proof copy.

Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

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Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery

Published by Bloomsbury Books

Available from All Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol.

Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae’s life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her.

Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.

What I Say

I am always fascinated by fiction books that find their starting point in real events, and Nothing Special is the story of Mae, a young woman who finds herself working at The Factory – Andy Warhol’s studio in New York City.

Her job, along with another woman called Shelley, is to transcribe audio cassettes exactly as she hears them – every single sound and pause must be captured and typed, however insignificant they sound. This seemingly repetitive and cryptic task, was actually published as A, A Novel by Warhol in 1968. This forms the backdrop to Mae’s evolution emotionally and personally as she slowly falls under the spell of this cultural revolution, while attempting to navigate the difficult time in our lives when we are no longer children, but not yet an adult.

Mae has a problematic relationship with her erratic mother, who seems to go from no interest to an obsessive interest with her daughter. Home life veers between times of calm and times of chaos, as her mother deals with her own issues by drinking and dating, while at the same time keeping her ever present doting boyfriend Mikey hanging around – who in fact is perhaps the most stable parental figure Mae has in her life.

As Mae becomes more involved with her project, she starts to view the world differently, and feels that the life she has lived up til now has been so small and narrow. We see the power of celebrity and notoriety, and how much people want to be part of what is happening at The Factory, to be able to tell people that they are in some way connected to Andy Warhol – even if they are just famous for fifteen minutes.

Nothing Special is also about the notion of the artistic gaze, and how we view both the art itself and those who create and participate in it. Mae finds herself more involved with The Factory, and the reader become more aware of how important it is for those around her to be seen, and to be part of Warhol’s history whatever the cost. We see how many of the people – including Shelley, want to be immortalised by Warhol, and have no scruples in doing whatever he wants them to do on screen in order to be able to say that they have been filmed by him.

Mae and Shelley are only needed until they finish transcribing the tapes, and when A is published, they are not mentioned, so are eradicated from the history of the very place they were so desperate to be part of. Nicole Flattery’s understated style of writing works so well for me, in scenes like this, because when life changing and at times upsetting things do happen to Mae, they are made even more poignant by the fact the language used and the words chosen focus you explicitly on her.

Nothing Special captivated me from the very first page, and when I had finished reading it, I sat and spent time reading about Warhol and more importantly, the people who came and went from The Factory. The captivating thing about Nicole’s brilliant novel is that Warhol is a figure on the periphery, the enigma around which everyone else orbits, and Mae’s life becomes the focus. This is a novel which asks us to consider not only the notion of how art is made and the legacy of Warhol, but also makes us think about the people whose names we will never know, but without whom, Warhol would not have been able to create the art we admire today.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Tabitha Pelly and Bloomsbury Books for my proof copy.

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

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The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

Published by HQ Stories on February 16th 2023

Available from West End Lane Books and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

A brilliant debut and powerful tale of sisterhood and home, set on the beautiful beaches of the Isle of Wight…

Flawed, complicated, secretive, big-hearted, you’ll fall in love with the Garnett girls. Margo and Richard’s love affair was the stuff legends are made of – forbidden, passionate, all-encompassing. But ultimately, doomed. When Richard walked out, Margo shut herself away from the world, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen and Sasha, to run wild.

Having finally put the past behind her, the charismatic Margo holds court in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness. The eldest, Rachel, is desperate to return to London, but is held hostage by responsibility for Sandcove, their beloved but crumbling family home. Imogen, the dreamy middle child, feels the pressure to marry her kind, considerate fiance, even when her life is taking an unexpected turn. And wild, passionate Sasha, the baby, trapped between her increasingly alienated family and her controlling husband, has unearthed the secret behind Richard’s departure… and when she reveals it, the effects are devastating.

Set on the beautiful beaches of the Isle of Wight, The Garnett Girls asks whether children can ever be free of the mistakes their parents make.

What I Say

Honestly? As soon as I heard that Georgina Moore was writing a novel, I wanted to read it, because book blogging is the very reason that we met, and as a brilliant supporter of bloggers, Georgina not only sends me fabulous books, but we have found over the years that our reading tastes are very very similar.

Honestly? When I knew that Georgina was very kindly going to send me a proof copy, I was nervous, because this would be a book written by someone I knew, and what would I do if it wasn’t for me?

Readers, let me tell you, that as soon as I started reading it, I knew that The Garnett Girls was not only going to be fabulous, it was just the novel I needed to read at that moment.

Margo is the matriarch of the Garnett family. Confident, engaging, unapologetic in asking for what she wants – and usually getting it, she knows who she is and what she needs, and she also is embracing life and sex, while all the time overseeing her family and getting involved in their lives.

Rachel, her eldest daughter, and her husband Gabriel, now live in Sandycove, the Garnett family home on the Isle of Wight, while Margo lives in a cottage nearby referred to as The Other Place. Rachel misses the life and vibrancy of her work and life in London, and is not enjoying being at Sandycove with all the duties and responsibilities it brings. Gabriel, who gets on famously with Margo, and runs the house while she works, also seems to be drifting from Rachel, and seems more interested in his phone than talking to her.

Imogen is a playwright, engaged to William – more from duty than because she loves him, and when she meets Rowan, the actress who will be the lead in her play, Imogen realises that she is incredibly attracted to her. It is the intensity and power of her relationship with Rowan that will cause Imogen to question everything she thought she knew, but we also see that Rowan’s need to be front and centre of Imogen -and indeed everyone’s world, makes Imogen realise that she has some really difficult choices to make.

Sasha, the youngest child, seems to be moving further and further away from her family. Her husband Phil is to be far too involved in her life and is controlling her world more and more, and Sasha is losing her sense of self at home, living for the times she can escape from her house and her marriage however briefly. When Sasha decides to look into her past, she sets off a chain of events that threatens to blow the family apart.

As the lives of the women are firmly at the forefront of this novel, always present in the background are two things. The ever present house, Sandycove, which may be in need of some attention, but every single part of it contains the memories, shared experiences and the good and bad times of the Garnett family. The other issue that is never mentioned is that their father, Richard, abandoned them all when the girls were very young, leaving Margo bereft and broken, unable to look after her daughters for a period of time. When it seems that Richard may come back into their lives, Margo and the girls find their worlds turned upside down, and they also have to look to their own lives to understand that they too have issues that are threatening their own happiness.

What I loved about this novel is the way in which from the very first page you are completely immersed in the world of The Garnett Girls. Sandycove, The Other Place and the Isle of Wight are so vividly brought to life, that you can see and feel every thing – the warmth of the beach, the food they eat, and the comfort and cosiness of Sandycove and the vivid depiction of the characters make it so easy to see them in front of you.

It was also interesting to see how Georgina wrote about sex and sexuality in The Garnett Girls, and so refreshing that age was not seen as a barrier to a woman relishing in her self and desires. Margo has lovers, and acknowledges that she needs to feel desired and to have sex, Rachel is struggling to keep sex alive in her marriage, while Imogen is not sure about her sexuality and Sasha’s unhappy marriage to Phil is no match for the attraction she feels to Jonny, a family friend. The ease with which Georgina wrote about these women and their sexuality felt frank and direct, and for me, made me feel closer to the characters.

The other theme I thought was handled brilliantly by Georgina was the dynamics of family relationships – something I love reading about. For me, I am always intrigued by how even the most seemingly perfect family a can be a myriad of things not said, of words swallowed down to avoid upsetting people, and how refusing to acknowledge a shared trauma a family has been through, like the Garnett Girls, has such an unconscious and wide ranging impact on their lives and relationships. Their lives are often complicated and messy, and I liked how behind closed doors and indeed in front of them, the Garnett family had to deal with it all, in a town where everyone’s business is everyone else’s business.

As Rachel, Imogen and Sasha come to terms with the issues in their own lives, we see how they share the unconscious bonds of sisterhood, being there for each other and trying to navigate their way through a devastating secret that eventually comes to light. I thought it was also interesting to see how Margo had controlled their world so that every trace of their father was eradicated from their narratives, but that she had to reconcile with the fact that her daughters needed to understand and know why their father had made the decisions he did.

The Garnett Girls is a novel that when you have finished it and sat back and thought about it, you realise how much is contained in its pages. There are the mother daughter relationships, the complexities of family life, the secrets that all families have, and the ever changing landscapes of what defines a successful relationship and marriage. However, for me, The Garnett Girls is ostensibly about celebrating women, and Georgina implicitly understands how much we need to see women who are relatable, real and not always perfect. Imogen, Rachel, Sasha and Margo show us that we should not define or restrict our choices, but instead we should be unafraid to articulate what we want or need, and for that reason alone, The Garnett Girls is a timely and utterly enchanting debut novel that I absolutely loved.

Thank you so much to Georgina and HQ Stories for my gifted proof copy.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

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The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

Published by Picador Books on March 4th

Available from all Good Bookshops and Online

What They Say

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.;
What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?
Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . .
Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.

What I Say

I have to be honest, when I first received a copy of The Lamplighters I wasn’t sure that it would be my kind of novel. The story of three lighthouse keepers going missing? I just didn’t think it would engage me at all.

I was completely wrong. The Lamplighters is a remarkably haunting and compelling story of how important our memories are, of those left behind when the unthinkable happens, and how the only people we truly know are ourselves.

In 1972, three Lighthouse Keepers; Arthur Black , Bill Walker and Vincent Bourne simply disappear from the Maiden Rock Lighthouse in Cornwall. The door is locked from the inside, the place is clean and the table is set for two people, and the clocks are set to 8.45. That’s it. No Lighthouse Keepers, no clues, and a mystery that lies unsolved for twenty years.

In 1992, an author called Dan Sharp wants to try and solve the locked door mystery that has had such a huge impact on the families that were left behind and the communities that had to deal with all the attention this brought on them. Dan decides to get in contact with the wives and girlfriend of the Lighthouse Keepers, and we meet Helen, who was married to Arthur, Jenny who was Bill’s wife, and Michelle who was going out with Vinnie at the time of his death. Helen and Jenny are keen to speak to Dan, but for some reason they are estranged from each other at a time when they should have been closer than ever. Michelle doesn’t want to get involved, and initially decides not to speak to Dan. What was interesting for me was that how in the background of this narrative, always seeming slightly ominous, was the ever present Trident organisation that has effectively paid off the families to ensure their silence and the women are very mindful of this.

The novel moves seamlessly between the two narratives – that of 1972 and 1992, where we see the reality of life for the men in a lighthouse, and the lives of the people who are left behind after they disappear. What Emma does so well when describing the daily routines of the men, is to show how repetitive and mundane but entirely necessary their roles are. Arthur as the senior lighthouse keeper is meticulous and incredibly proud of what he does, and he wants the other men to appreciate how important their jobs are. He may seem aloof and introspective, but his dour demeanour hides a tragedy that has served to put a wedge between himself and Helen. Bill seems to always be slightly resentful of Arthur, and although initially we may believe it is because he covets Arthur’s job, the truth is far more destructive. Vinnie is the youngest and enthusiastic about his new job, but we learn that he has spent time in prison, and has brought and hidden a gun onto the Lighthouse.

With all three men hiding something from each other, we start to see just how claustrophobic and isolated they are. Stuck in an inaccessible lighthouse, having lots of time to think about things as they do their jobs, little by little, cracks start to form between them. The fact that they have to work night shifts in rotation too, all add to the fact that the lines between daytime and night time become blurred, and their imaginations start to work overtime and we are never quite sure what is real and what is imagined. All the time, ever present is the unforgiving and powerful sea all around them, and as a reader you are all too aware of how all encompassing and dangerous nature is, and how they are completely at its mercy.

Meanwhile back in the Keeper’s Cottages, we see how Jenny and Helen are poles apart in their personalities, and we also discover that Bill constantly makes Jenny feel inadequate as he holds Helen up as to the wifely example she should aspire to. As we hear their stories in 1992, in the form of monologues they deliver while speaking to Dan, it adds an authenticity to the narrative. They tell us not only the reality of having to be a Lighthouse Keeper’s wife, but also help to fill in the stories of their husbands, so we start to fully understand exactly why Arthur and Bill living together in such an enclosed space can only lead to tragedy.

Emma’s slow drip feed of revelations about each character’s personalities adds to the undeniable tension both in the Lighthouse and between the women at home. No one is without fault or flaw, and it is impossible to not empathise with each person as their story is slowly revealed. The moment that Arthur makes a discovery that changes everything he believed he knew about his wife is beautifully understated, and this devastating revelation sets in motion a chain of events that culminates in Dan Sharp trying to uncover the mystery twenty years later.

To say anything about what happens next would spoil The Lamplighters for you, and I have no intention of doing that! What I will say is that as the novel draws to its conclusion, you really feel the sense of panic and despair that permeates the Lighthouse, and there is a sense of other worldliness which only serves to add to the tension as little by little the plots seamlessly falls into place. You understand how incredibly frustrated and bewildered the women must be, and how they are unable to really live their lives after what has happened to them, and that the burden on them since the disappearance has been all consuming and overwhelming.

The Lamplighters worked so well for me because it absolutely wrong footed me – I had it all worked out. Until I really didn’t! Emma has written a novel that not only captures the physical and emotional toll of working in a Lighthouse, and the secrets that are held within, but also gives a voice to those who are so overlooked in history – the women who are left behind to run the men’s world when they are not there. It is a sensitive and emotional novel that perfectly articulates how memory can be an all encompassing force, and that when we are left alone with our thoughts for a long time, they can be just what we need to comfort us, but also the very things that serve to destroy us.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Camilla Elworthy and Katie Bowden for my gifted copies.