Storytime

Romantic comedy

SEX AND VANITY by Kevin Kwan, Penguin

Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy was a whirlwind bestseller with a hit movie to match and I suspect Sex and Vanity will no doubt reach similar heights. Based – loosely – on E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View, our protagonist is the over-privileged Lucie Tang Churchill, who as the novel opens is 19 and holidaying on the island of Capri. Lucie is a “hapa” – half Chinese, half American – and on her first morning in Capri meets George Zao, a handsome Chinese Australian surfer. Even though she claims to abhor him, they have a brief fling. Then when years later the two meet again, it is clear Lucie is again attracted to George, only now she is engaged. A typically Kwan-like plot of deception and redemption follows. Gothic mystery

THE SILK HOUSE by Kayte Nunn, Hachette

Buckle up for a spinetingling story set in an exclusive British boarding school with witchcraft, ghosts and things that really do go bump in the night. Oxleigh College is welcoming the first intake of girls in its 150-year history and history teacher Thea Rust, who has just arrived from Australia, is charged with looking after the new girls. The school is “a bastion of the British establishment” and letting in girls is a reluctant nod to modern times. They are to live in Silk House, a building with a dark history that seems to cast a spell on its occupants. Author Kayte Nunn deftly switches between two timelines – current day and the 1760s – weaving her ingenious plot. Beautifully written with heart-stopping pacing. Love lessons

THE FOGGING by Luke Horton, Scribe

This unsettling study of the breakdown of a relationship is utterly addictive. The novel opens as Tom and Clara head for Bali for their first holiday in a decade. There is a tension between the couple and this quality time will hopefully salve the wounds. But when Tom has a panic attack on the plane we get a glimpse of what is going on in his head and it’s a mess. At the resort they start to relax, but when they meet French woman Madeleine and her partner Jeremy another tension is added. As the two couples’ worlds entwine we learn more about Tom and Clara and then comes the fogging. This is the hotel’s routine pesticide spraying but there is nothing routine about the dark clouds that set in. Brilliantly observed.