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Hello April. It's lovely to welcome you again with your promise of tulips and sunshine.
What are your reading plans for this month? Here are ten books that I would like to read this month.
Six Mile Store by A.M. Belsey
Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
Anyone can write a bestseller. Here’s how.
GO GAY
It’s been seven years since Mallory shot to fame as a literary sensation. But after years of struggling with writer’s block, she’s desperate to resurrect her career before it spirals into obscurity. She needs inspiration to strike – and fast.
GO SAD
Enter Leo – a young struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for.
GO DARK
Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. Authenticity sells, and there’s nothing more authentic than real life. She’s the perfect person to tell Leo’s story. Gay, sad, dark – just what the world needs right now. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide: just how far will she go to pen the perfect story?
Preorder Link - Bookshop.org
Story of a Murder : The Wives, the Mistress and Doctor Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold
The Other Killer by Heidi Field
You can change your name. Change your life. But someone knows exactly who you are.
Twenty years ago, Mason Tucker was tried and convicted as the teenager who helped lure young boys to the serial killer known as the Pied Piper of Peasedale. After serving his twenty-year sentence, Mason is freed and hopes to remain invisible while he rebuilds his life as an adult, hoping to become a man he can be proud of. A new town, a new flat, a new job and a new purpose.
But living with secrets is challenging, and protecting his anonymity, the woman who stood beside him, and her child becomes impossible when the past pushes back. Hard. Within days of his release, Mason suspects he’s being stalked. He’s threatened and twice attacked. He never imagined being outside would be more dangerous than being in prison. The police aren’t an option. One headline will destroy him.
Someone wants him punished, not redeemed, and as danger closes in, you will never suspect where the next threat comes from.
Purchase Link - Amazon
1984 by George Orwell
Purchase Link - Bookshop.org
Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben
The present day is hard enough for former Detective Sami Kierce, but his past isn’t through with him yet…
Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He begins to scream - and then he runs.
Twenty two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. But as soon as he makes eye contact with her, she bolts.
For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.
His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past. Soon he discovers that some secrets should stay buried...
Purchase Link - Bookshop.org
The Body That Floats by Jayne Chard
TWO RETIRED SISTERS
ONE DEAD BODY
Julia, a retired head teacher with a fondness for order, and her half-sister Frankie, who believes that rules are more like vague suggestions, are back—this time in the picturesque Cornish village of Portscatho.
Their morning swim off Tatum’s beach is rudely interrupted by a floating corpse. The police declare the death accidental, but the sisters have other ideas.
Soon, they’re knee-deep in smugglers’ tunnels, taking a bumpy ride in the back of a builder’s van, and facing down a gun-toting local with questionable fashion choices.
Can the sisters keep their heads above water long enough to uncover the truth or will the killer make sure they sink without a trace?
The Body That Floats – the mystery’s deep, the water’s cold, and the locals are packing more than just fishing gear. The second charming and witty adventure in the Julia and Frankie mysteries.
Preorder Link - Bookshop.org
The Spirit Guide by Bridget Walsh
Tragedy strikes Minnie Ward's beloved Variety Palace Theatre when a man is found dead in suspicious circumstances. Along with private detective Albert Easterbrook, she investigates. The trail leads them from the streets of London to a grand country house in the Suffolk countryside, home of the shadowy Spirit Sisterhood, who promise their clients an audience with the deceased.
Minnie isn't buying it. She goes undercover within the Sisterhood and enters an eerie world of seances and mediums. But unravelling their secrets will bring Minnie face-to-face with ghosts from her own past. Can she get to the truth before the murderer kills again?
Purchase Link - Bookshop.org
The Witch by Marie NDiaye
In a small, sleepy town, a mediocre witch, in a mediocre marriage, tries to pass on her gifts to her twin daughters, who, it becomes immediately apparent, have skills far beyond her own.
Lucie comes from a long line of witches, powers passed down from mother to daughter. Her own mum was formidable in her powers, but ashamed of her magic. Perhaps as a result, Lucie's own gift is weak: she can see into the future, sometimes - but more often, she can only see the present of some other location. Not very useful. And the worst part? All she can ever see are insignificant details - a scrap of outfit, the colour of the sky.
Lucie's own children are initiated into their family's peculiar womanhood when they reach twelve years of age, and in a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying the curious tears of blood that denote their magical powers. Having learned, they take off quickly and fly the nest. Literally.
Witty, dreamlike, vaguely unsettling, and utterly enchanting (pun intended), The Witch brings the mysteries of womanhood and motherhood into sharp relief and leaves us teetering on the edge, unbalanced by questions as seemingly unbreakable relationships break down left and right.
Who is to blame for family failures? And how can you - can you? - build a nest that no one wants to fly?
More Than Just a Dog : Understanding, Loving and Living with Dogs : An Essential Guide for Humans by Simon Wooler
This book explores what every dog owner knows – that a dog is never just a dog.
They are our companions, best friends, members of the family and for some the most important part of our lives.
Our ability to make meaningful connections with other animal species and their ability to return the favour is, perhaps, never more beautiful than the bond we have with dogs.
Simon Wooler, trainer to Sophie from Romania, social media’s most famous fearful canine, unlocks the heart of the special relationship we have with dogs.
He explores how, over millennia, they have inveigled their way into our homes and hearts and evolved to live alongside us. Demystifying the science behind dog behaviour, he explains how they learn (and why they sometimes seem immune to our efforts to train them), how they communicate and what influences the powerful bond they form with their people.
(header photo courtesy of Elin Melas at Unsplashed)
