LATEST TITLES

CITY OF GIRLS by Elizabeth Gilbert, Bloomsbury Publishing, £16.99 (ebook £14.26) ★★★★★

THE Eat, Pray, Love author’s latest novel is what you want from a proper summer holiday read: It’s pacy, life affirming, sexy and fun – but it’s tender and thoughtful too.

Vivienne, 19 and rich, has just been kicked out of college. Bolstered only by her sewing machine, her parents ship her off to New York to live with her aunt Peg, a theatre owner and portal of all fun. Thriftily stitching costumes for show girls, Viv immerses herself in this new world of gin fizzes, men, sex, hangovers and scandal, as the beginnings of World War Two slowly filter into being around her. Told in Viv’s voice, it pulses with wit, care and honesty.

HOME REMEDIES by Xuan Juliana Wang, Atlantic Books, £12.99 (ebook £8.99) ★★★★ ★

THIS debut collection of short stories offers a series of poignant, smart and wry stories about the Chinese-American experience.

The ease and ennui of secondgeneration immigrants is often undercut by the memories of sacrifice and uncertainty undergone by the previous generation.

There are elements of the surreal and the elegiac mixed in with the comedy and social satire. A memorable collection.

MY NAME IS MONSTER Katie Hale, Canongate, £12.99 (ebook £10.39) ★★★ ★★

THE whole world’s population has been wiped out – except for protagonist Monster.

She leaves the Arctic and washes up in Scotland.

Through flashbacks we learn about her past life, and she thinks she is entirely alone – until she discovers a wild young girl. At first it’s a gripping study of loneliness and what it can do to your psyche.

It soon shifts into a relationship between two women, who have totally different approaches to life.