The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

I'm a sucker for a big American novel. Not Moby Dick though - think Maine by Courtney Sullivan or American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Stories which follow characters from childhood to adulthood, set in interesting and beautiful American places, that are emotionally rich and thoughtfully detailed. Meg Wolitzer's latest ticks all those boxes and more.

It follows the lives of six of "The Interestings", a group of seventies teenagers who meet at a very liberal arts-focused summer camp. The central focus is Jules Jacobson, an initial outsider looking into the gilded world of Ash and Goodman Wolf. Joining her in the group are Ethan Figman, a very talented cartoonist, Jonah Bay, a folksinger's son who is beautiful and shy, and Cathy Kiplinger, a gifted dancer whose body is outgrowing her ambitions. Jules herself is a passable actress whose skill lies in comedy.

The novel follows the group as their lives change and separate. A shocking incident provides the first fracture, financial success the second and a secret the third. Jules remains to some extent the outsider, although her close friendship with Ash pulls her to the centre of the group.

Wolitzer is good on atmosphere: the seventies hippies and eighties yuppies feel real. She's even better on feelings: Jules cannot lose her jealousy of her friends,  even as it threatens her relationship as an adult. And the central idea of the book seemed to be about talent,  asking us is talent everything? Or is money really what opens doors? Is it enought to be good and ordinary,  or do we need to stand out to feel alive?

This is a big, thoughtful novel with an involving plot. I read it in 2 days and would thoroughly recommend it.

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The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

Sophie Hannah's The Orphan Choir is the latest instalment from the excellent new Hammer imprint, which has already published Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat,  Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate and Julie Myerson's The Quickening (also reviewed on RichTapestryReads). I'm happy to report that, like its Hammer stablemates, it does a sterling job of spooking the reader.

I joined in an interesting conversation with Sophie Hannah on Twitter recently on the nature of fictional ghosts and the recent trend for ambiguity as to their veracity or otherwise. I have to say that I agree with Hannah that the most satisfying spook is an unambiguously real presence, rather than a figment of a disturbed narrator's consciousness. While The Little Stranger is an honourable exception,  as I've written before on this blog, I much prefer ghosts in the style of MR James and Susan Hill.

So it is with pleasure that I report that The Orphan Choir is a satisfyingly traditional chiller which nonetheless plays with the reader's perception of its narrator. Set in Cambridge, where Hannah lives, the story follows Louise, whose only son Joseph has been selected for a prestigious choral scholarship which requires him to board. Louise misses him more than her husband feels is normal; lonely and miserable at home, she spends her time daydreaming about his return and wishing he was with her.

Louise also has a bad relationship with her neighbour in Cambridge, an anti-social individual whose loud parties seem calculated to disturb her. She complains;  the relationship sours further; she involves the council. Then, to her horror, she begins to hear the sound of a children's choir in her house and is convinced that her neighbour is tormenting her further, needling her about her son's absence. Louise in her waking and sleeping hours is edgy, exhausted and irrational. This section of the book gradually increases the reader's unease, whilst also evoking powerfully the frustration and impotence Louise feels.

Desperate to escape,  Louise sets her heart on a rural second home in an idyllic development in order to spend more time with Joseph. But the music follows her there and gradually her equilibrium is destroyed. This section is the most explicitly frightening of the book; the supposedly perfect setting contrasts chillingly with Louise's mental strain. Always on edge, she can never enjoy anything  - and the music is becoming even more real to her...

The Orphan Choir is an enjoyably creepy read with the psychological depth that Sophie Hannah is known for. Reading it late at night, I had to put the book aside during one of the most frightening sequences for fear of being too spooked to sleep - and that's exactly what I want from a ghost story.

The Orphan Choir will be published on 9 may. I am very grateful to Sophie Hannah, who arranged for me to have a review copy of this novel.

The Orphan Choir is published on 9 may 2013

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Dear Thing by Julie Cohen

Claire has it all: a beautiful home, a loving husband, a fulfilling job as a music teacher.  Except one thing - a baby.

Romily is her husband's best friend from university,  a single mum working as a scientist and living in a 2 bedroom flat. So why would she offer to act as a surrogate for Claire and Ben, carrying a baby that's genetically hers and Ben's?

Answer: because she is in love with Ben,  and always has been. Partly to please him, partly to live out a long-held dream, she volunteers to do what Claire has never been able to despite years of fertility treatment: have Ben's baby.

From this intriguing concept, Julie Cohen has created a satisfying and compelling novel which follows and encourages us to empathise with both Claire and Romily. From the opening, where Claire goes through the agonising experience of thinking her IVF treatment has been successful,  through Romily's growing doubts about the wisdom of her plan,  the reader is taken inside the characters' minds and sees things from their perspective.

The novel is a page turner too; the ongoing narrative of both Romily's pregnancy and Claire's growing jealousy provides a narrative drive which will keep you turning the pages long into the night.

The title is clever, too: Romily writes letters to her unborn child, addressed to "Dear Thing". We know how much Claire wants this baby, and how much Romily wants Ben to want her. Julie Cohen has created believable, rounded characters grappling with an unusual and difficult situation. I was interested to see in the notes to the book that Cohen had researched infertility through friends and through the internet;  I was impressed by the realism with which she tackled Claire's horrible situation.

Dear Thing is high quality women's fiction, enjoyable for a range of readers. It's a thoughtful and imaginative novel which gets to the heart of the characters. You'll feel you know Claire and Romily by the end of the novel, and be rooting for them to achieve their respective redemptive endings.

I must thank Transworld publishers,  who provided me with a review copy via Net Galley.  Dear Thing was published on 11 April. 

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The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

Bobby Mahon is waiting for Frank, his father, to die. Frank is grimly, resentfully hanging on to life in a dark cottage on the outskirts of a small town in Ireland. Bobby has more problems; recently laid off as foreman for a grasping local builder, it turns out that his contributions haven't been made and he isn't entitled to anything more than state unemployment. Out of work, sad and angry, Bobby stands for post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, in its despair and darkness.

Donal Ryan, like Anne Enright in The Gathering, paints a bleak portrait of a country let down by the promise of an economic boom. Outside the town a 'ghost estate' lurks, full of incomplete houses. Only two unfortunates live there, lured by the dream of a new community but lost in the reality of emptiness and unfinished homes.

Ryan's novel, more so than Enright's, captures the hopelessness of the Irish recession. His townspeople feel powerless; in one moving chapter a man known for his sunny disposition confesses to overwhelming depression,  that he dreams of walking into the local lake. Here we have victims of broken promises and futile dreams. Yet the novel contains black humour and moving glimpses of love; both the title and the last lines suggest that Ryan's interest lies in the impact of Ireland's economic woes on the bonds of kinship and love in the country's communities.

The Spinning Heart's powerful originality comes not just from the subject matter but from the mode of telling. Each chapter is from a different narrative perspective; stories thread through them, and, while no teller is returned to, characters recur in each others' stories, reflecting, I suppose, the tapestry of connections in a small town in the Irish countryside. Each teller has a distinctive voice and Ryan creates sympathy for virtually all of his creations,  even the seemingly irredeemable Frank. It is Bobby who tells the first story and seems to be the centre of all the connected tales. The Spinning Heart does have a narrative drive which propels the reader through the novel. There is a subplot about an abducted child which works less well than the main thread about Bobby;  this does, however,  add an urgency to the plot which the novel might otherwise lack.

The Spinning Heart was published in Ireland in October 2012 and won the Irish Book Of The Year award, voted for by the public. It's also been included in the 2013 Waterstone's Eleven, which I truly hope will bring it to a wide audience in the UK. Ryan's sad, lyrical, bleak and occasionally funny novel deserves these accolades and more. It's a novel which feels modern and classic at once, recalling both Roddy Doyle and WB Yeats and introducing a unique voice in contemporary fiction. I can't recommend it highly enough.

My thanks to the publishers,  who provided me with a review copy via Net Galley. The Spinning Heart will be published in the UK by Doubleday Ireland on 27 Jun 2013.

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Honour by Elif Sharak

Pembe and Jamila are twins,  born in Turkey as the eighth and ninth daughters of an exhausted mother. Time divides them; while Jamila stays by the banks of the Euphrates, Pembe travels to London with her husband Adem in search of a new life. But London is not entirely what she expected; living in a small flat, Pembe feels alienated from her husband and her beloved son Iskender.

Honour opens with Pembe's daughter collecting Iskender from jail; he's served a sentence for killing his mother. In lesser hands, this early shock could have detracted from the rest of the novel. However, Sharak's skill is such that our knowledge of Pembe's eventual fate lends urgency to the story. This is a richly detailed novel about London's overlooked outsiders: the family that live next to you,  or the girl that serves you in the newsagents.

What sets Honour apart from similar novels is the evident sympathy and warmth Sharak feels for her characters. The novel explores the constrictive and corrosive effect of a strict code of honour on both men and women. Sad stories of lives destroyed by an obsession with honour and shame are at the heart of the book - Pembe's husband Adem is haunted by the spectre of his father, obsessed by his mother's "shameful" reputation and her son Iskender becomes a bully and a killer in a desperate attempt to maintain his own and his family's honour - but we do not condemn the characters,  rather perceive them all as victims.

The novel has much to enjoy as well as provoke: rich descriptions of rural Turkey, comedy in Pembe's job at the hairdressers,  romance in her discovery of a kindred spirit and an unexpected twist at the end. This is thoughtful and engrossing fiction which treats serious issues with a warm touch. I see from the blurb that Sharak is a feted author in her native Turkey; Honour deserves to win her acclaim and readers here too.

I bought this novel and did not receive a review copy. Honour is published by Penguin and is available now.

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Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley

I must begin this review with a confession - I am really, really biased. I think Alexandra Heminsley is great. Not in a creepy stalkerish way, I hasten to add. I follow her on Twitter and I love her warm book recommendations and funny style. So when she started tweeting about a book she'd written about running, I knew I'd want to read it.

Running Like A Girl is that book. As a person who has completed some 10ks before (not a runner, I don't think, really), the subject matter was obviously interesting for me. The first thing I'll say is that I really wish I'd had this book before I did my first ever run, which was a horrific experience I undertook with a hangover the day after my 21st birthday out of some vague impulse towards purging myself. I purged myself so much I had to sit down on a park bench after five minutes to stop myself from throwing up everywhere. Had I read Running Like A Girl,  I definitely wouldn't have gone out with a hangover and I wouldn't have expected an unrealistically zen experience from my first run.

This book is perfect for the novice runner. Alexandra's warm, chatty and funny voice eases you through your worries and reassures you that these worries are both normal and nothing to worry about in reality. The second half of the book contains very useful practical tips about running and about buying kit which again I would have loved to have read before starting to run. It would have saved my toenails for a start which, like Alexandra's,  fell off because my first pair of running shoes were far too small.

The first half or so of the book is almost like a running autobiography.  Alexandra tells the story of her own path to becoming a runner, from the first painful run to her marathon highs and lows. It's like hearing your best friend tell you their story - her voice is a reassuring guide through the challenges of running and its rewards. It seemed like she wanted everyone to know that running isn't easy,  but it's achievable. And it'll make you feel better about yourself.

I found the first hald of the book particularly moving. Alexandra begins with the story of an emotionally draining half marathon and then takes us through her journey to achieving success as a runner. In that journey she learns so much about herself, her family and her friends. It isn't easy - there are challenges and setbacks on the way, but she keeps going. In fact, as she says, she learns that the secret to surviving a run, as well as lots of the things life throws at you, is to just keep going.

The test of the power of this book is that it made me feel simultaneously guilty that I hadn't been running in ages and keen to get my trainers out again. It's a well-informed, personal guide to running that is also a funny and inspiring true story.  I'd recommend it to all runners, novice and experienced.

Running Like A Girl is published on 4 April. I received a review copy of this book via Net Galley. 

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The Quickening by Julie Myerson

Rachel and Dan have just got married. Expecting their first child, they set off for an impromptu luxury honeymoon in Antigua, leaving behind them the wife of Dan's best friend Rufus, recently killed in a car crash. As soon as they set foot on Antigua,  however, things start to go awry.
Rachel begins to see a mysterious figure on the fringes of their idyllic resort: a shambling, bedraggled man whose presence she alone registers and whose thoughts begin to merge with her own. As soon as she is alone, he appears to her, lying at the bottom of their swimming pool or trailing across the beach as she sunbathes.  Her relationship with Dan begins to deteriorate too; she no longer trusts her new husband, and retreats into an inner world where the movement of her unborn baby (the "quickening" of the title) is the only thing that can bring her comfort.

This is the latest in a series of supernatural novellas published under the Hammer imprint by Random House. (Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat and Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate have previously been published - thanks to Fanny Blake on Twitter for pointing this out to me). And like its forebears, The Quickening is a genuinely creepy tale from a very skilled author. The notes to the book mention Julie Myerson's fondness for ghost stories and, as a ghost story obsessive,  I could see the spirit of MR James hanging over this disturbing and occasionally violent chiller. The presentation of the mysterious figure recalls "Lost Hearts" in its grotesqueness, and the abrupt and shocking ending has hints of "O Whistle And I'll Come To You".

I joined in an interesting conversation with the great Sophie Hannah on twitter recently about ambiguity in modern ghost stories. She questioned whether it's become a cliché in modern ghost stories for ambiguity about the presence of the ghost or otherwise to signify a questionmark over the central character's sanity. Is it real, or is he/she simply disturbed? Lots of readers agreed that this has become a bit overdone and wished for the return of straightforwardly malevolent spirits (the prime modern example of which is, of course Susan Hill's terrifying Jennet Humfrye). Rachel's haunter in The Quickening is ambiguous in a more complex way than those which Hannah describes; whilst it's certainly true that he is real, where he ends and Rachel begins is not always clear. Has her obsession with him taken her over, or is he controlling her in a different way? (Sophie Hannah's The Orphan Choir is the next to be published under the Hammer imprint,  and I am eagerly anticipating it.)

Like all good supernatural tales, The Quickening has the right balance between a growing sense of unease for the reader and the characters and some shocking moments. The ending, too, seems both inevitable and awful at the same time. And the title combines both the beginnings of life in the baby Rachel is carrying and the stirrings of something horrible in a seemingly perfect paradise.

A review copy of  this novel was provided via Net Galley. The Quickening is published by Random House on 28 March.

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Just What Kind Of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

What's your worst nightmare? Lisa Kallisto is living one of hers.

Lisa tries hard. Very, very hard. Running her family and staying on top of her job is hard work,  though , and leaves her permanently frazzled. Her best friend Kate, however, seems to have it all. She lives in a beautiful house with an attentive husband and is the kind of mother Lisa dreams of being. Kate manages everything perfectly, from washing to school fêtes; she's the centre of her children's world.

Which only makes Lisa feel even more wretched when Kate's daughter Lucinda goes missing. Lucinda is supposed to be staying with Lisa's daughter, Sally,  after school. But Sally doesn't go to school that day and Lisa, permanently frazzled as she is, simply forgets that Lucinda is supposed to be at her house. So when Lucinda doesn't arrive at school the next day, she's already been missing for hours. To make matters even worse, another local girl recently went missing and turned up traumatised and half naked. 

Lisa determines that she will save Lucinda. But it's not easy. Her family and Kate's family come under extreme pressure and threaten to burst apart at the seams.

This pacy thriller stems from this simple but brilliant question: what if it was your fault that your best friend's child was abducted? How could you live with the guilt? Anyone reading the opening chapters, parent or not, will feel their stomach lurch with Lisa's as her nightmare unfolds.

Daly also explores modern families and the desperate striving for a Cath-Kidston esque domestic perfection that drives many women to run themselves ragged. In the compelling opening chapter,  Lisa complains about feeling overwhelmed,  but realises that her life looks perfect from the outside.  And as the story develops she finds out a lot more about what it takes to keep Kate's supposedly perfect life on track. Daly is good, too, on the jealousy lurking in friendships. Lisa can't help but envy Kate's lifestyle and Kate herself.

I finished this book in a day and would have finished it even more quickly if I hadn't had  to go to work! It's pacy and twisty, with a real shock at the end. Thriller fans will love it, and so will fans of psychological crime fiction written by the likes of Sophie Hannah or Nicci French. A very promising debut indeed.

I must thank Alison Barrow at Transworld, who kindly provided me with a review copy. Just What Kind Of Mother Are You will be published in April 2013.

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Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

How do you know who you're talking to online? Who lurks behind that desktop,  laptop, tablet or phone screen? When you tweet, or update your status on Facebook,  or even write a blog post, how do you know who's reading it?

All these chilling questions are at the heart of Lottie Moggach's debut novel. It's the first book I've read to truly get to the heart of these unsettling issues and ask its reader to query the trust we now place in the internet, and social networking in particular.

Tess wants out. Out of her life, out of her family, out of the world. To help her slip away, Leila agrees to take on her identity online after Tess has taken her own life. Leila takes this project on at the request of Adrian,  a philosophical guru she has met on a discussion forum. For Leila is nearly housebound, cut off from normal life by years of caring for her mother,  an MS sufferer.

So that she can "be" Tess online, Leila embarks on an exhaustive trawl through Tess' s virtual past. With Tess's cooperation,  Leila sits at her computer and reconstructs Tess's life. She reads her emails, her Facebook updates, her entire digital backstory in her quest to become Tess. And of course she is quickly in too deep. Beautiful, flirtatious,  confident Tess is everything that Leila is not. Soon "being" Tess is more attractive than being Leila.

The premise is original but this is more than just a concept-driven novel. Leila is a captivating narrator. Personally,  I pitied her and wanted to protect her from the harm. However,  Leila is of course doing harm through her actions - even though she cannot see this herself. I've already enjoyed discussing Leila's actions and can see lots of bookgroups having a great chat about this very issue.

The novel really made me think about the idea of a digital footprint. So many people now rely upon the internet for communication,  and so many of us now meet people online. But why do we trust our screens? After reading Kiss Me First I've found myself thinking twice before updating my status and filling in my "friends" about my trip to the gym. Who knows who's reading it?

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The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclefani

Thea Atwell, fifteen,  precocious and handsome, has been sent away from her Florida home for committing a shameful sin that has destroyed her family. Her father, desperate to put some distance between Thea and her family in Florida, enrols her in the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls,  in the mountains of North Carolina, where Thea will meet the daughters of the wealthiest families in the South, who travel to Yonahlossee to become young ladies. Thea's time at Yonahlossee will change her forever...

At camp Thea meets Sissy,  a charming girl with a wardrobe to die for who quickly becomes her best friend, Leona, the prodigiously talented rider whose aloofness hides the financial difficulties her family are in, and the intoxicating Mr Holmes,  headteacher of Yonahlossee and father of three beautiful daughters. Thea quickly becomes entangled in the Holmes family's life,  teaching the three girls to ride during an enforced break from her own riding training, and developing an all-consuming crush on their father.

This fabulous coming of age novel by Anton DiSclefani follows Thea's journey to adulthood high in the mountains of North Carolina. By the time Thea comes to leave the camp, she is an entirely different girl from the naive teenager who arrived at Yonahlossee. Fans of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep will eat this up - Thea has Lee Fiora's self-awareness, which makes her an excellent narrator.

This book has plenty more to enjoy.  Yonahlossee itself is a seductive paradise,  far from the concerns of depression-era America. The girls wear white uniforms and sleep in cabins between hazy days of formal education, baths outside, dances in the cabin and, of course, horse-riding lessons. The camp is set in beautiful mountains, perfect for night rides and days dreaming while staring out of the window. DiSclefani creates an enchanting bubble in the camp; it's so lovely you wonder how any of the girls can bear to leave it. Perhaps it's a symbol for the fleeting beauty of adolescence itself, an intoxicating time that once left can never be recaptured.

DiSclefani captures perfectly the relationship between teenage girls, a mixture of jealousy, closeness and distance which each girl must negotiate. Thea helps Sissy meet her boyfriend at night in the woods, breaking the camp's rules for her friend, but feels jealous as she does and seems to half wish that Sissy will be caught.

The boarding school novel is a classic for a reason: adolescence, a closed environment and a rigid sense of time passing all mean that these novels, from Mallory Towers to Harry Potter to Prep  have an enduring appeal. Yonahlossee is a new addition to this canon and destined to become a classic of the genre.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclefani will be published on 6 June by Tinder Press. I must thank Helena Towers at Tinder Press who provided me with a review copy of this novel. 

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The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Kirby should be dead. Attacked by a vicious murderer as a child, she somehow survived and grew up. Now she is an intern at a Chicago newspaper, trawling through crime records to trace her killer. Kirby is convinced she was the victim of a serial killer who has attacked before and will attack again.

And she's right. Harper Curtis attacked her with a knife, has killed before and will kill again. But what Kirby doesn't realise is that Curtis is almost untraceable. He has the perfect getaway vehicle - only in this case it's a house which allows him to roam Chicago through the ages, searching for the "shining girls" he is obsessed by. Curtis can travel forwards and backwards in time, killing and escaping justice.

With this original premise Lauren Beukes has created what I can imagine will be one of 2013's hottest crime fiction picks. It reminded me of Stephen King at his best,  merging horror and crime to produce a gripping thriller. The book is very well constructed, following Kirby's quest and Curtis' s rampages simultaneously. In lesser hands this could have been confusing (I confess here to having been terminally confused by The Time Traveller's Wife), but Beukes has clearly planned the novel very carefully and it is easy to follow both storylines.

The book is most satisfying when the "loops" of the storyline close together: when Kirby finds one of Curtis' s victims and pieces together what we as the reader have already seen happen,  or when we see Curtis' s viewpoint on the attack on Kirby. The parts of the book following Curtis's murderous outings to the future can be occasionally hard to read; the pity you feel for the victims can make it difficult to read about their horrific deaths at Curtis's hands.

I also really enjoyed the journey through Chicago's history in this novel.  Beukes has clearly done her research; we see a travelling circus of the 1940s, a college student in the 80s, a women's liberationist working in an abortion clinic in the 1970s. Having visited Chicago last year on holiday, I found this particularly interesting,  and made much more vivid by the precise references to streets and parks Beukes carefully gives us.

This fast-paced thriller deserves to be a summer hit: as a reader you care deeply about Kirby's quest for vengeance on the man who tried to steal her life, and fear Curtis's powers to destroy lives. The novel builds to a thrilling climax, and there's even a hint of romance for Kirby. A precision-made thriller, guaranteed to have you turning pages late into the night, made distinctive by the supernatural element.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes will be published by Harper Collins on 25 April. I must thank the publishers who kindly provided me with a review copy via Net Galley.

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Ten Things I've Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler: vivid, contemporary women's fiction

Alice is losing her father. In their family home in North London, Malcolm is succumbing to the lung cancer that he has hidden from his daughter while she travels abroad. Recalled to London by her sisters,  Alice arrives just in time to see Malcolm before he dies.

Daniel is losing himself. Homeless and becoming ill, he wanders London searching for his lost daughter and leaving beautiful messages for her in the urban landscape. Daniel sees letters as colours,  and creates collages of detritus in which words are spelled by these colours.

Sarah Butler's moving novel follows Alice and Daniel's journeys as they learn about themselves and their feelings. It's beautifully crafted: colour is central to the novel, and the descriptions of Daniel's collages are a pleasure to read. The novel is also in some ways a love letter to London: in a touching sequence towards the end of the novel, Alice and Daniel walk through London together. Butler describes this walk with a poet's eye and a Londoner's love for the hidden corners of the capital.

Lists can sometimes be the sign of lazy writing; however, in this novel Butler uses them very effectively as a structural device. Each chapter alternates between Alice's and Daniel's viewpoint and opens with a list of what the character has learnt or felt since the previous chapter. The lists are compelling in their succintness; they are a really simple but original way of developing the characters for the readers.

One word of warning: this novel is truly moving and at times almost unbearably poignant. The writing is so vivid and the emotions of the characters so well observed that I found I couldn't race through it. Instead I found myself reading it piece by piece, letting the writing sink in before I was ready to move on.

All in all, I was surprised and touched by Ten Things I've Learnt About Love. An unusually finely-written novel which deserves to be a huge success.

I must thank Pan Macmillan, who kindly provided me with a copy of this novel at their women's fiction party.

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Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer: superior crime fiction

Belinda Bauer's fine crime thrillers have been gaining her fans and critical acclaim since the publication of Blacklands in 2010, a gripping and disturbing novel set on the Yorkshire moors which focused on a serial killer. Hints of the moors murders gave the book a particularly chilling edge and the plot was tightly wound. It was a Richard and Judy pick and deservedly won the CWA Gold Dagger for the best crime novel of 2010.

For her latest novel Bauer has moved away from the Yorkshire setting of Blacklands and its followups, Dark Side and Finders Keepers. Rubbernecker follows the story of young Patrick Fort, an Aspergic anatomy student who stumbles across a murder during a dissection. Patrick feels compelled to trace both the anonymous victim and the murderer, despite facing hostility from the authorities.

In two parallel narratives Bauer also traces the story of the murder victim, who for the most part of his story is on life support in a ward for coma victims,  and the story of a nurse on the same ward who manages to seduce a rich visitor to the ward away from his barely conscious wife. I have to say that I enjoyed Patrick's narrative slightly more than these parallel stories; however, I appreciated the unusual setting of the coma ward, which Bauer used well to explore the difficulties and potentially murky ethics of caring for patients who have very little prospect of recovery.

Patrick is an engaging protagonist, possibly despite his Aspergic personality. There is a hint of The Curious Incident Of the Dog In The Night Time in Bauer's choice of an Aspergic young man as the detective in a crime mystery. However, Patrick is given depth by the inclusion of his childhood as his motivation. As a young boy, Patrick saw his father killed in a road accident, and has since been obsessed by death. Patrick's naivety and lack of comprehension of the emotional reality of death create a real sympathy for this vulnerable protagonist.

Like Bauer's previous novels, Rubbernecker has a cracking plot with a gripping chase scene. There's also some well judged comedy to lighten the mood of the book thanks to Patrick's student housemates. I found myself turning the pages at ever increasing speed as I got towards the novel's denouement. Another fine and unusual crime novel from Bauer: highly recommended.

Transworld kindly provided me with a review copy of this novel via net galley.

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How To Be A Good Wife by Emma Chapman

Marta Bjornstat's life looks perfect. A beautiful home, a handsome older husband,  a successful son. Emma Chapman's gripping debut novel shows us how little it takes for this facade of perfection to crumble and expose the huge and disturbing cracks in the Bjornstats' supposedly good marriage.

Marta begins to see a hauntingly frail girl in her home. The girl seems to be beside her, but she can't talk to her, and no one else can see her. Somehow we know she isn't exactly a ghost, and nor do we believe Marta's husband Hector,  who is angry that she has stopped taking her medication.

As this elegant novel progresses we see the cracks deepen. Hector has been keeping some disturbing secrets from Marta, and she has to struggle to find out the truth about her marriage. The world beyond her home, for so long the centre of her life, draws her away from the supposed safety of domestic comfort and into the challenge of working out her own identity.

Emma Chapman's debut novel is a compelling read. It is slim and economical, the spare narration seeming somehow appropriate for the Scandinavian setting. The lands of super stylish homes and lifestyles also seems very apt for a story about the illusion of a perfect marriage.

Chapman also manages the tension in the novel very well too. Marta's slow realisation of the truth is expertly managed and the central revelation,  when it does come,  is suitably shocking.

How To Be A Good Wife is a skilfully written domestic thriller: fans of Sophie Hannah, for example,  will love it. But it's also a chilling glimpse into a marriage, a meditation on how much of our identity we can sacrifice in the pursuit of a domestic ideal. I gulped it down almost whole and would urge you to do the same.

I must thank Emma Bravo of Pan Macmillan who kindly sent me a review copy of this novel.

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How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti

Young women are the new young men: fretted over, examined forensically, culturally anatomised. See, for example, Lena Dunham's Girls,  following four mid twenties Brooklynites. In the first episode of this rightly lauded and very modern show, Dunham's Hannah, having been cut off from her parents' previously ever-dripping money tap, rails at her parents, saying "I just need time to find out who the person I'm supposed to be is" (or words to that effect). We laugh at Hannah's naivety, at her self centeredness - but probably also remember painfully clearly that sense that the right mould for you to live in is just out there waiting for you to find.

Sheila Heti's new novel asks exactly that question. In fact, to call it a novel is to underestimate Heti's very original work. Part confessional, part fiction, part very modern self-help book, it follows a young artist named Sheila as she tries to write a play and learn from her friends how to act in the world where all the men she meets,  including her lover Israel, are trying to teach her something - about sex, faith, life, art. Sheila is tired of being someone's project and so she travels into the world to investigate how she really is.

How Should A Person Be? is sharp and strange, like a prickly fruit that blends sweetness and bitterness in its taste. Sheila's quest seemed important to me: I remembered being 24 and watching everyone around me to see what the right thing to do was. My flatmate got bikini waxes: should I? My friend was always on a diet: should I be? My other friend went to church: would that help me?

The book's form is unusual: a blend of narration and taped conversations between Sheila and people she encounters. I presumed these were at least partially "real" conversations Sheila Heti has had with her friends. Sheila and her friend Margaux's emails to one another are also included. This mixture of forms, of fact and fiction, is defiantly original. Heti is saying to us, this is something new and important.

And I agree. I actually found the book moving, particularly in its depiction of Sheila's relationship with Israel. No punches are pulled in the fairly explicit presentation of their relationship; but I found Sheila's initial acquiescence to and later questioning of Israel's dominant treatment of her the most revealing part of these sections. I found myself willing her to learn to be true to herself, to take control of her identity.

Some readers might find this book pretentious. It's concerned with high-minded topics, certainly: how much of the self should an artist use in their art? Is it immoral to write about your friends? What is ugliness? But I'm not sure Heti knows or even thinks she knows the answers - it's the asking that's important.

I finished How Should A Person Be? a few days ago and it's lingered in my mind since. A compelling and unusual read, it's also timely and modern. One to prickle your brain and make you see yourself slightly differently. And isn't that what good literature does?

I must thank Fiona Murphy at Vintage Publicity who kindly provided me with a review copy of this novel.

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Beguiled by book browsing

I'm eagerly anticipating a visit to one of my favourite second-hand bookshops tomorrow after school: My Back Pages in Balham. This little gem is a cavern of books on all topics, overflowing from shelves onto stacks on the floor. The books have that satisfying old-book smell; slightly damp, musty, pungent - oddly lovely. I'm definitely going to buy something, anything that takes my fancy. It's a shop worth saving.

Before I started writing this post I thought, romantically, oh - it's all about the end of the secondhand bookshop. Amazon and e publishing have killed them off. To an extent this must be true; witness the much quoted figures on the decline of bookshops on the high street.

That's not the whole truth though. Some of those bookshops must have been just not very good. I think, for example, of the lovely independent bookshop in Dulwich Village, Village Books. I love that place. The stock is up to date, the shop is beautifully laid out, Radio 4 or Classic Fm is on quietly in the backgrounds, and the assistants are knowledgeable and friendly. I make a point of buying books every time  I go in, and would be truly sad if it were to disappear.

I think, too, of some of the great things about online bookselling. Over the last few months I've bought a large number of books from secondhand sellers on Amazon and have been more than impressed by the service and the price. I've also been introduced to new authors through the Kindle daily deals and the 7 days of Kindle promotion. Don't forget, either, why we fell in love with Amazon - the range it offers is incomparable with a high street bookseller. As an Eng Lit undergraduate it was invaluable to be able to order copies of the obscurer books that were always out of the library.

And even on the high street I enjoy buying books. After a shaky period Waterstones appears to be back on form. I spent a wonderful hour in the Piccadilly branch spending my Christmas voucher - and got a signed copy of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I left inspired and refreshed.
There's obviously an awful lot of debate around the future of bookselling, and a long way to go before anything is certain. But I have to admit I very much like how things are now: an unprecedented plurality of options for the book buyer. A myriad of ways to be beguiled by a book.

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You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane: warm, funny women's fiction

Mhairi McFarlane's debut novel has been causing quite the storm lately, racing up the kindle charts and making a splash in bookshops too. On the strength of various online recommendations I took the plunge into the ebook - currently just 99p on kindle.

The novel follows Rachel Woodford, a 30 something court reporter living in Manchester. As the story starts she breaks up with her fiance Rhys, just as her university best friend Ben relocates to the area. Seems like a straightforward setup - but there are problems: Ben's married, for one thing, to the perfect Olivia, and his relationship with Rachel is complicated to say the least.

Rachel is a really appealing heroine: flawed and funny, Bridget Jones style. Her friends Caroline, Mindy and Ivor are a great supporting cast and Ben is suitably dreamy for us to root for him and Rachel to get together. There's also an interesting subplot revolving around Rachel's work as a journalist which has her questioning how far she'd go ethically for her job.

My favourite parts of the novel were the flashbacks to Ben and Rachel's time at university. Anyone who's been a student will recognise the situations they end up in and take pleasure in MacFarlane's comic yet sympathetic portrait of student life. Lots of fun nostalgia for thirty something readers!

All in all a warmly written, funny and enjoyable read which lots of readers will identify with. I'll definitely be recommending it to my friends.

I must add a recommendation for the "extras" at the end of the digital book. McFarlane has history in women's magazines and as a former mag junkie I found the generic female celeb interview hilarious. She nails the cliches of the genre: celeb apparently wolfing down high fat food, reading highbrow literature and being effortlessly beautiful - all guaranteed to depress the reader! And I enjoyed discussing it with Mhairi on Twitter too!

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A criminal new year: The Fall by Claire McGowan and Tuesday's Gone by Nicci French

Before I begin I'm going to clap myself on the back a bit. Sound the RESOLUTION-ACHIEVED klaxon: both of these novels came from the local library. (someone is actually waiting for The Fall so I had to read it quickly and not renew it!) I feel a warm glow of smugness just typing that!

I've been on a bit of a crime binge to start the year off. First up was Claire McGowan's The Fall, a debut novel much recommended in end of year round-ups. McGowan hails from a small village in Northern Ireland. Here I must declare a slight patriotic interest in a Northern Irish author - as a 'Nornie' myself I love reading books from fellow countrymen and woman!

The Fall follows three characters: Keisha,   a streetwise yet vulnerable young woman whose life is turbulent to say the least; Hegarty, a policeman looking for his big break; and Charlotte, a PR girl feverishly anticipating her dream wedding to Dan, her banker fiance. When Dan is arrested and charged with committing a murder, their worlds collide. The multi-layered narrative switches between the three central characters as the plot progresses, a clever way of following the implications of the crime.

The Fall is not a classic whodunit. It's pretty obvious who the criminal is from the beginning, and the climax of the novel is Dan's court case. Instead McGowan explores contemporary London through the stories of Charlotte and Keisha. In interviews she has said that one of the things that interests her about London is the way that one bus ride can take you from poverty to luxury. Charlotte and Keisha live almost next door to each other, but they live foreign lives. Neither can understand the other at the beginning; by the end they've realised their connections. I found The Fall unusually touching for a crime novel; what gripped me was not just the story of Dan's court case, but also the story of how both Charlotte and Keisha grew during it.

Overall, I'd heartily recommend The Fall. I look forward to reading McGowan's next novel, which I believe is out this year.

I also read Tuesday's Gone by Nicci French this holiday. I have tried previous French novels but never really enjoyed them until I read Blue Monday. (Wow. That's an amazing novel with a powerful ending). I enjoyed Tuesday's Gone, mostly, but I didn't feel it quite lived up to the heights of its predecessor.

Tuesday's Gone takes up the story of Frieda Klein from the end of Blue Monday. Klein is a psychotherapist who has a relationship with the police. Her highly attuned observational skills, honed through her work as a therapist, enable her to spot details police officers miss. Klein is a really appealing heroine: sympathetic without being perfect, clever but modest, kind but troubled. I really felt for her in this novel as she attempted to come to terms with aspects of her past.

In Blue Monday, Klein worked on a case of missing children. In Tuesday's Gone we follow her on a more conventional murder case. A naked corpse is found in the house of Michelle Doyce, a woman suffering from a complex psychiatric problem. The police are cynically determined to charge Doyce with the crime in order to wrap it up. Frieda knows differently and uncovers a web of deceit surrounding the victim, Robert Poole.

It's interesting following Frieda through this case; once again French takes us into the unpleasant side of London in Deptford.  I was a bit disappointed, though, with the continuing story of Blue Monday, which I didn't think we were given enough of! I don't want to ruin either novel for readers so I won't say much more here. However if anyone else felt the same please let me know!

I certainly enjoyed Tuesday's Gone and am already looking forward to the next instalment of Frieda Klein's story - and hopefully some more resolution to the Blue Monday storyline!

Two enjoyable London set crime novels for Christmas - now I'm going to read something completely different: Margaret Atwood's sci-fi After The Flood for my book group. Anyone out there read it?

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New Year's Reading Resolutions

Did you see yesterday that apparently the number 1 resolution in the UK is to read more books? (Buy a tablet computer was number 8. Not sure that reflects brilliantly on the population). That definitely isn't my resolution - I'm thinking yoga and dry January, predictably - but it did get me thinking about reading habits in general and what I might change.

The first thing I should change is using the library more. I always love it when I go and particularly when I request books. The grand sum of £1.20 isn't a lot to read a new hardback. And if you don't enjoy it, you can give up with impunity. Plus, local amenities: use them or lose them.

I'm aware of the irony of writing this next point on a smartphone, but I know I should read more and peck at my phone less. I know I'm more relaxed after work if I read for an hour rather than flip around sites on my phone. So why do it? I guess it's easy distraction and effort free entertainment. A bit like high calorie snack food that leaves you unsatisfied after eating it.

I'd also like to keep a better track of what I've read, which is where the blog comes in. Although it's only new, inspired by my trip to Pan Macmillan in August, I've really enjoyed writing it and hope to continue building it up this year. I could resolve to read more non fiction, or less crime - but I think I know what I enjoy, so any changes should be to habits.

What a self indulgent post! What are your New Year's Reading Resolutions?

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