POPULAR FICTION
THE TWO HOUSES by Fran Cooper (Hodder £14.99)
CITy slickers considering a country move, beware. Don’t end up like Jay and Simon, who buy a remote yorkshire mansion with a big gap in the middle where a set of rooms has been taken out. The Two houses are full of grisly secrets.
When a skeleton is discovered in the space between, the manure really hits the fan.
It doesn’t put Jay off though; a potter suffering from the ceramicist’s version of Writer’s Block (China Crisis?), she’s finding new inspiration in the desolate valley.
Particularly in the pub with hunky landlord Tom. This causes ructions in the village, where racist Angela, who fancies Tom, takes it out on Asian librarian Dev.
This everyday story of country folk is superbly written, utterly gripping and has more than a touch of Wuthering heights and Rebecca. Its poetic, forensically- detailed descriptions of the countryside reminded me of Jon McGregor’s brilliant Reservoir 13.
ALMOST LOVE by Louise O’Neill
(Riverrun £13.99) SChOOL parents’ evenings might seem humdrum but here they’re the beginning of a Fifty Shades-style sexfest.
After art teacher Sarah meets older, rich estate agent Matthew, suggestive texts lead to regular trysts in a sleazy Dublin hotel. he’s using her for one thing only, of course, but she can’t see it.
Meanwhile, she treats her friends, father and boyfriend Oisin like dirt (all the good people in this novel have poetic Irish names. The bad or inadequate have prosaic ones).
Almost Love is intelligent, compelling and with considerable psychological depth, but I found Sarah hard to warm to. While we sympathise with her tragic backstory, her nasty ways are alienating and her eventual epiphany comes after a great deal of hurt.
HOTEL SILENCE Audur Ava Olafsdottir (Pushkin Press £9.99)
ThIS gentle story about violent things draws you in, slows you down, and makes you think. Jonas is suicidal; his wife has left him, his mother’s in a home and his daughter is not who he thought.
Wanting to end it all, he heads off to ‘the most dangerous country in the world’, a sort of post-Balkan War smash-up with bullet holes in every wall and a traumatised people.
On a whim, as he leaves, Jonas picks up his toolbox. This proves his salvation, and everyone else’s. hotel Silence is run by an offbeat sister and brother (think noel Fielding). It’s falling apart and once Jonas starts with his screwdriver, word gets out.
Appeals to Mr Miracle flood in from all over the broken community. you get the metaphor; he fixes them — and fixes himself. But what’s so wonderful is the understatement, the humour, the philosophical depth; above all, the lovely optimism.