Lies, landladies and lodgers
WENDY HOLDEN by Lissa Evans
(Doubleday €17.99, 304 pp) I ADORED this book. Its dry, spare wit reminded me of the great Laurie Graham.
It is written by an absolute master and the characters are superb. We’re in wartime London and mystery surrounds the relationship of the central characters, boardinghouse landlady Vee and sensitive schoolboy Noel.
They’re posing as aunt and nephew, but who are they really? Noel is a brilliant creation: preternaturally clever and hilariously acute, like a super-brainy Adrian Mole.
A fabulous cast of boardinghouse and bomb-shelter regulars provide a background to what is essentially a story about family. Funny, moving and utterly life-enhancing.
US THREE by Ruth Jones (Bantam €17.99, 384 pp)
THE follow-up to the hugely successful Never Greener, this moving story of three Welsh friends-for-life is less Valley Of The Dolls, more Dolls Of The Valleys — Lana in particular, as she’s a would-be West End hoofer, while Catrin is a doctor and Judith a civil servant. We follow them from school to middle-age, kicking off with the momentous Greek holiday where Cat meets the love of her life.
It’s at her wedding that Lana loses it and sets in train events that take three decades to sort out.
Soap opera-like, this book balances warmth and humour with bleakness and despair.
Another winner for Gavin And Stacey star Jones.
THE TRUTH MUST DAZZLE GRADUALLY by Helen Cullen (Michael Joseph €17.99, 336pp)
LIVEWIRE American student Maeve meets dreamy Irish potter Murtagh at Trinity College, Dublin.
It’s love at first sight and the early days are poetic, colourful and ecstatic.
But there are shadows — Maeve is a manic depressive — which lengthen and darken after they marry, move to a remote island and start their family.
The inevitable, as Maeve sees it, happens and her four children and husband struggle to rebuild their lives afterwards.
Intensely moving, beautifully written and drenched with Irish atmosphere, this novel asks brave and thoughtful questions about mental health and suicide.
But frankly, Murtagh, that island was never a good idea...