The Bad Mother’s Handbook, Kate Long’s first novel, was one of my favourite books of last year, do seek it out. This too is a delight. We meet Katherine aged 18, she has been brought up by her poisonous Grandmother Poll and the relationship between these two is brilliantly portrayed in a tale with many twists and turns. We know father is dead but where is mother and what happened to her? How will Katherine get a life of her own and who is Callum? It is all very tantalising, Kate Long is a tremendous find, highly recommended. I love her.

Comparison: Kate Atkinson, Sara Banerji, Mavis Cheek.
Similar this month: None but try Shane Watson.

Synopsis

From the author of the number-one bestseller The Bad Mother's Handbook. Katherine Millar is eighteen, and desperate for lots of things - to be thinner and less swotty, and to have cooler friends. But most of all she wishes that she had two parents instead of one grandma, Poll. Katherine's father, Poll's adored only son, was killed in a car crash when she was a baby. According to Poll, the crash was the fault of Katherine's mother, who disappeared shortly afterwards and hasn't been seen since. Poll is pushing seventy, half-blind and utterly poisonous. Her ambition is for things to stay exactly the same for ever, and for Katherine never to leave their pit village of Bank Top; indeed for her to leave the house only when strictly necessary. Katherine has other ideas, especially when on her birthday she receives a mysterious parcel of glamorous, grown-up clothes - so unlike the ones Poll makes her wear. And then the handsome and self-assured Callum turns up, claiming to be a cousin she never knew she had. Katherine can feel that change is coming; the omens are all around her.

About the Author

A former teacher,  Kate Long born in 1964 grew up in Blackrod, Lancashire. She wrote her first novel, The Bad Mother's Handbook, after her children had gone to bed and "if there was nothing good on the telly." She currently lives with her husband and two young children in the small village in Shropshire. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation