bookof theweek

Falling by Jane Green

Moving to the suburbs and falling in love with a hunky man is a fantasy for many of us, but for author Jane Green it was also the start of a success story.

It’s been 20 years since the former feature writer left journalism – and London – for America to work on her debut novel Bookends, and she has never looked back.

It touches on the familiar themes of class wars, love and family: the protagonist Emma Montague swaps her upper-crust English life and dull boyfriend Rufus for a financial career in New York, before switching from the Big Apple to a beach cottage in Westport, Connecticut like the author herself.

Emma immediately falls in love with her landlord (just as Jane did), who is also a father to six-year-old son Jesse.

Falling, also billed as A Love Story, is the perfect summer escapist read – it will make you laugh and cry, showing why Green continues to wear the ‘chick-lit’ crown.

The Secrets Of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

Meet Laetitia Rodd, a widow in “reduced circumstances” who also happens to be an ace undercover private detective.

This first novel in a new series by award-winning author and journalist Kate Saunders, this is a breath of fresh air.

Set in the Victorian era, there are charming nods to history such as when Mrs Rodd makes rabbit pie or dons black silk for mourning.

A deceptively gentle read, it’s packed with pithy observations about human nature and Mrs Rodd makes a genuinely likeable character you can’t help but root for.

Luckily, there are already plans for five more books in the Laetitia Rodd Mystery series and this reader, for one, can’t wait.

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

Victor’s latest mission is proving trickier than usual.

A former slave turned slave catcher, he inhabits an America that’s the same as the country we know today... only different.

In this distorted present, the American Civil War never happened. Slavery – complete with horrifically modernised forms of incarceration and torture – still exists in a handful of Southern states known as the Hard Four.

With abolitionists defeated, clandestine groups that free individuals provide the only glimmers of hope.

It’s these “underground airlines” that the morally ambiguous Victor is up against. But what is it that his bosses are trying to hide?

Blackwater by James Henry

Author James Henry has taken what he learned from writing three prequels to R.D. Wingfield’s popular DI Jack Frost series and created this police procedural novel set in Essex, featuring DI Nick Lowry, a hard-bitten cop with a talent for boxing.

Set in 1980’s Colchester, the story is very much centred around this being a garrison town.

The plot line is bolstered by the actions of the army top brass who cause Nick no end of trouble during his investigation into an incident involving two soldiers, which starts as a drunken accident and escalates into murder.

It’s a well-paced read with the events only spanning a short timeline, and serves its purpose to introduce us to Lowry and his immediate colleagues, yet it leaves some loose ends, allowing the development of each character in later novels.

However, I found it all too familiar and therefore not outstanding in the genre.