Eight novels for April
Or any time, really, but these happen to be box fresh
What have you been reading lately? Anything I should add to my list? And how did you decide what to pick up. I ask because I’ve been reading in a very piecemeal fashion over the last couple of weeks. There’s been no system to what I’ve picked up - not even a whim has dictated. I’ve simply reached mindlessly for the next book on the towering piles that surround my desk and bedside table. I think when you have a lot going on, you tend not to want to make yet another decision, so the path of least literary resistance it is. (In between gorging fiction, I’m also still reading this, and I am about to start this about which I hear tremendous things.) This explains why I read three romance-centric novels in a row, which I wouldn’t usually do - I prefer to mix it up.
Happily, I realised they are nearly all published this month, which allows me to pretend there was a system and recommend them without being that annoying person who insists you simply must read X because it is quite the best book they have read in forever, only for you to discover X isn’t published until August or October or some other distant date, by which time you will have forgotten all about it. (Shades of Lady Boxe in The Diary of a Provincial Lady.)
More-than-a-romantic-comedy: Great Big Beautiful Life - Emily Henry
Frequently imitated, rarely bettered, I think this may be my favourite Henry yet.
Relentlessly upbeat entertainment journalist Alice Scott is convinced she’s found her big break: writing a biography of the infamous, reclusive Margaret Ives, descendant of American media royalty. But when she arrives Little Crescent Island (one of those small coastal towns which crop up in Henry’s novels and have you googling ‘is this a real place?’ with a view to visiting), she finds she’s not the only one vying for the job. Pulitzer-winning writer and “human thundercloud” (but admittedly very hot) Hayden Anderson is also in contention. Margaret throws down a gauntlet: they each have a month to interview her - separately - and then pitch their proposals. Except…it’s a small town and they will keep bumping into each other, and whilst they try not to compare notes, when they do, something doesn’t quite add up. As they unravel the secrets of Margaret’s past, their burgeoning romance is a counterpoint to the raw emotion of her story, which gives the novel depth. Poignant, witty, charming, heartfelt. It’s an emphatic yes from me.
The cool kid: Deep Cuts - Holly Brickley
There were moments during this when I had the unsettling feeling that I might not be cool enough to read it. I have never been one of those intense muso types who makes knowing quips about esoteric lyrics in songs by little-known indie bands, in between reading The Guardian and suffering Rooneyesque angst. But then I thought, I love David Nicholls and this is basically One Day meets Nick Hornby doing a too-cool-for-school Noughties soundtrack. I predict it will be huge - not least because it’s being made into a film with Saiorse Ronan and Aidan Butler, so there we very much go.
Percy and Joe meet in a bar. She’s an English student with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop music, very many opinions, but no musical talent. He’s a tortured artist (grim home life) and an aspiring singer-songwriter with serious talent - and a girlfriend. What ensues is years of them being inexorably drawn towards each other without actually doing so because, you know, girlfriends and friendship and a collaborative relationship that is too important to risk. As Joe’s star rises, Percy has to stand on the sidelines and watch as everyone else falls for the man she secretly loves but can’t admit she does.Pages upon pages of frustration, envy and the sweet agony of denial and longing - so much longing. It’s smart, poignant and very moreish indeed. Thee literary equivalent of a musical earworm.
Soaring historical mystery: The Midnight Carousel - Fiza Saaed McLynn
What a bewitching, evocative debut this is. A dark, swirling, magical story of obsession, revenge, grief and love - as hypnotic as the titular carousel.
In 1900s Paris, a man wracked with grief at the loss of his wife and son makes a beautiful carousel. But it seems to be cursed, as riders keep vanishing into thin air, but Detective Laurent Bisset thinks he has his man. Meanwhile, on Canvey Island, Essex, plucky, determined, parentless Maisie Marlowe escapes a cruel foster home when her Aunt Mabel appears and whisks her off to the household of Sir Malcolm Randolph, where Mabel has been appointed housekeeper. But when scarlet fever sweeps through the household, Sir Malcolm and Maisie are bereft - and emigrate to Chicago, grief hot on their heels. On a whim, Sir Malcom buys a carousel, and resourceful, capable Maisie sets up a genteel fun fair with the carousel as a glittering centrepiece to restore their depleted coffers. But history starts to repeat itself. Enter Bisset - charming, sympathetic, haunted by sending an innocent man to death, dissatisfied with his life, determined not to fail a second time, and curiously drawn to Maisie.
It’s terrific - and I adored Laurent and Maisie. It’s rare to meet two such engaging characters. I could read a whole book about Laurent, and Maisie is remarkable: an outsider who straddles worlds, and strikes out as independent woman at a time when women’s lives were heavily restricted and curtailed.
Pondering the messiness of modern life: Table for One - Emma Gannon
Ah, the new novel from
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