Burning passion for an old flame
NEVER GREENER by Ruth Jones (Bantam £12.99)
THIS fantastic debut by Gavin And Stacey star Ruth Jones is about the rip-roaring affair between teacher Callum and actress Kate.
They first met two decades ago while working in a pub; the intervening years have seen Callum marry and Kate become famous.
But once she turns up to do a personal appearance at his school, the old flame isn’t just rekindled, it becomes a conflagration, in which Kate’s husband Matt and (adorable) little daughter, and Callum’s lovely wife Belinda and family, are all consumed.
Jones’s detailed characterisation is terrific — everyone is interesting, the terrifyingly cold-hearted Kate most of all.
Meanwhile, the drama is intense, especially when mildmannered Matt unleashes his inner 007 and follows Callum to an assignation with his wife. By the way: the frequent sex is quite intense, too. . .
LOOK TO YOUR WIFE by Paula Byrne (William Collins £12.99)
LISA BLAIZE, the frisky wife of a public school headmaster, is completely obsessed by Twitter. Unfortunately, someone nasty on it is completely obsessed by her. In a contemporary twist on Othello, they send her creepy messages and write horrid, unsigned letters to her husband.
Candidates for this modern Iago are scattered liberally throughout the plot and range from chippy former colleagues to the bicurious mother of an expelled boy.
Or is it the lusty doctor Lisa flirts with online? Or even the sainted head himself (he has a violent streak, it turns out)?
While uneven in parts, this energetic debut has genuine suspense, as well as a winning heroine in fashion-loving Lisa. But what I liked best were the backstage glimpses of an elite educational institution: something the author, married to the master of an Oxford college, knows all about.
TWO STEPS FORWARD by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist (Two Roads £14.99)
LITERARY works on pilgrim routes are nothing new — Chaucer was on it centuries ago. However, his rollicking, Canterbury-bound characters have little in common with the earnest millennials here doing the Camino to Santiago de Compostela.
Yet it’s charming and absorbing nonetheless. Written as a two-hander, it’s the tale of Zoe, a widowed Californian vegetarian, alternating with that of Martin, a divorced engineer from Sheffield.
Zoe’s walking to get over her husband (and has a few other issues), while Mart’s invented a cart he’s testing for roadworthiness (and has a few other issues).
They’re chalk and cheese, but keep running into each other, plus an array of Camino characters, from raunchy hotel-keepers to transgender Brazilians.
Will Zoe and Martin hook up in the end and find inner peace on the old pilgrim way? You can probably guess.