BOOK CLUB

must-reads

This month’s

In JP Pomare’s Call Me Evie (Sphere, approx €13.99, out now), Kate Bennet has had something bad happen to her. Our 17-yearold narrator is feisty and trying to flee from an older man, Jim, who isn’t really her uncle. He says he’s keeping her safe, that it’s for her own good when, in fact, he is keeping her a virtual prisoner in a rural, isolated New Zealand hideout. If it’s all for her own good, then why did he shave her head and start calling her Evie? They’re on the run, that much is clear. But why? And from whom? Jim, who’ll only refer to those they are running from as they, , won’t say anything about it. But Evie knows something terrible happened. A video. Humiliation. Rage. Only she can’t remember a thing. Slowly shifting between before she fell into Jim’s clutches and afterwards, she tries to remember; to piece together what happened that traumatic night so she can finally make her escape.

This is a striking, meticulous debut – and you’ll never see those jaw-dropping twists coming. Gripping psychological suspense at its very best.