Almost English, Charlotte Mendelson (paperback August 2023)
$13.00
In a tiny flat in West London, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother and three ancient Hungarian relatives. Imprisoned by her family's crushing expectations and their traditions, she knows she must escape. At Combe Abbey, a traditional English private boarding school in the Dorset countryside, Marina realizes she's made a terrible mistake.Here, among the boathouses, chapel services and unspoken social hierarchy, she is the awkward half-foreign girl who doesn't know how to fit in, flirt, or even exist. Meanwhile, her mother has her own painful secrets to deal with - especially the surprising return of the very last man she'd expect to see. And Marina's disastrous spiral at Combe Abbey is going unnoticed .
. . 'A deliciously funny tale of dysfunctional families.
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The Most Fun we Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo ( paperback, June 2020)
$12.00
This book got a little overlooked when published as a hardback because it was simply gigantic. I predict late success with the paperback, it has been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and is a superb summer read.
MARILYN has somehow fallen into motherhood and spent four decades married to DAVID, who's pretty certain he loves her more than anyone has ever loved another person.
WENDY, their eldest, a cause for concern, soothes herself with drink after being widowed young, while VIOLET, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mother, is disturbed by the reappearance of a son placed for adoption fifteen years earlier. LIZA, a professor, is pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves and GRACE, their dawdling youngest daughter, lives a lie that no one in her family suspects. 'A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory' Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles'
Everything about this brilliant debut cuts deep: the humor, the wisdom, the pathos' Rebecca Makkai
Thursday Murder Club ( 1) Richard Osman (paperback 2021)
$13.00
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?The Times Crime Book of the MonthGuardian Best Crime and Thrillers----------'A warm, wise and witty warning never to underestimate the elderly' Val McDermid'I completely fell in love with it' Shari Lapena'This is properly brilliant. The pages fly and I can't stop smiling' Steve Cavanagh'Steeped in Agatha Christie joy' Araminta Hall'Pure escapism' Guardian
Love Untold, Ruth Jones ( paperback July 2023)
$13.00
Love, mess, secrets; this story of four generations of women is shot through with Ruth Jones's warmth and wisdom.' JOJO MOYES'A hug in a book'
The funny, moving and uplifting new novel from Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin & Stacey and author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Never Greener and Us Three. Grace is about to turn ninety and she doesn't want parties or presents or fuss. She just wants a quiet celebration: her daily swim in the sea and a cup of tea with granddaughter Elin and great-granddaughter Beca.
More than anything, she wants to heal the family rift that's been breaking her heart for decades. And to do that she must find her daughter, Alys - the only person who can help to put things right. But thirty years is a long time.
And many words have been left unsaid. So is it too late now to heal the pain of the past?This is a story about mothers and daughters: the love inherent in that bond and the heartache that miscommunication can bring. More than anything, it's about the importance of being true to oneself.
This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams ( paperback 2020)
$13.00
A new novel from the wonderful Niall Williams ( History of the Rain, Four Letters of Love).
One of my favourite books of 2020 - Linda
Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living.
But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets for which he needs to atone. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.
