Death in the dreaming spires
CHICK LIT SARA LAWRENCE PARTY GIRLS DIE IN PEARLS by Plum Sykes (Bloomsbury £14.99)
SYKES studied at Oxford and is now an editor at American Vogue, where she writes about fashion and society, all of which plays beautifully into this comic murder mystery set at Oxford in the Eighties and populated by welldressed aristocrats who throw endless parties.
However, when Ursula finds a body in her first week of her first term, she realises that life at university is not all Brideshead and ballgowns.
On the plus side, the gruesome discovery provides her with her first scoop for Cherwell, the student newspaper. All her hopes of a glittering future in journalism are riding on this.
But her editor says that unless she figures out who the perpetrator is, her story will be killed as stone dead as the arrogant and difficult victim, Lady India.
There is a surfeit of suspects, plus Ursula is struggling with a complicated essay for Dr Dave, a heartthrob history professor in whose rooms she found Lady India’s body.
It’s great fun, wonderfully written and deliciously moreish from start to finish.
THE SUMMER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS by Rowan Coleman (Ebury £12.99)
THIS epic love story is reminiscent of The Time Traveler’s Wife. The difference here is that the time travel exists in a motherdaughter relationship, rather than as a metaphor for failed relationships.
It’s only after Luna’s mother dies that a secret trauma comes to light. The impossible occurs when Luna travels to New York and finds herself face-to-face with her mother in the week it happened.
Then she realises she can save her mother from what drove her to suicide, changing the course of history.
This beautifully written tale ultimately asks whether you should play God, or let fate take its own course.
THE SUNSHINE SISTERS by Jane Green (Macmillan £14.99) I’M A huge fan of Green’s emotionally intelligent books, and here she focuses her gaze on a far-frombrilliant mother, narcissistic Hollywood actress Ronni Sunshine, and her three estranged adult daughters, Nell, Meredith and Lizzy.
Now in her 70s, Ronni is
dying and determined to bring her daughters together before she goes.
Each is facing a crisis of her own, but none has any intention of sharing their feelings. And when they return to their childhood home, they find themselves slipping seamlessly back into the roles which they always played.
As the reality of Ronni’s illness sinks in, they confront long-held resentments and begin to talk honestly about their feelings towards her, as well as their own issues.
It soon transpires their bonds might not be as broken as they believed. I loved it.