The misery of marriage — and adultery
THE COAST ROAD (Bloomsbury £16.99, 320 pp)
SET in 1994 in County Donegal, just before the legalisation of divorce in Ireland, this beautifully written novel follows three women.
Writer Colette is the subject of endless gossip in the small community, since she left her husband and two sons for a passionate relationship with a married man in Dublin.
Housewife Izzy feels trapped in her troubled marriage but finds solace in a writing class run by Colette.
When Colette returns she is desperate to reconnect with the sons her ex bans her from seeing and asks Izzy for help. Things change — but not always for the better.
Third protagonist Dolores, married to an adulterer, is not having an easy time either.
The novel is wonderful on what it means to live in a patriarchal society and the consequences women can suffer for trying to follow their dreams. Compelling.
THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley (sceptre £16.99, 368 pp)
SET in the near future, this original, genre-mixing novel is narrated by an unnamed civil servant offered a great salary before being told what the job is.
After agreeing to top secrecy, she learns that the government can now travel through time and extract people from different eras.
The travellers are known as ‘expats’ while her professional title is ‘bridge’ — her role involves living with, teaching, helping and monitoring her assigned expat.
Ripped from their own time — just before death records showed they would have died — and dropped into the 21st century, there are five abductees from history in the experiment.
Our protagonist is given
Commander Gore, a naval officer who disappeared in 1846 on the ill-fated Franklin expedition to the Arctic.
He finds it hard to adjust to contemporary London but it’s not long before our expat and bridge start falling in love. It also becomes apparent just how shady the department she works for is. A triumph.
HENRY HENRY by Allen Bratton (Cape £16.99, 336 pp)
TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD Hal is the eldest son and heir of his toxic, obsessive aristocratic father Henry, the 16th Duke of Lancaster. Hal is gay, suffers from Catholic guilt and takes a lot of cocaine.
Henry’s main obsessions are with his son and making sure he does not escape the traditions expected of him.
It doesn’t take long to realise something is very wrong and very twisted in this family. It’s essentially a queer retelling of Shakespeare’s Henriad but the extreme trauma it contains isn’t far from the hideous events in A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — if that was too much for you, this will be too.
Hal must find the strength to confront all that has happened if he stands any chance of freedom.
It’s dark and gripping. And although horrified, I couldn’t put it down.