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Maureen Stapleton - Editorial Expert
Maureen Stapleton, a writer and journalist, has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Radio Times, Heat, and many others. She is the associate director of the Greenwich Book Festival, and is a prize manager for the Comedy Women in Print Prize. As a proud holder of both British and American citizenship, she is bilingual in hot drinks (coffee and tea).
Like Sherlock Holmes before him, Dr. Jack Cuthbert is brilliant but difficult.
Working as a pathologist for Scotland Yard in London in 1928, he is assigned a case where two bodies have been found intertwined and decomposing in a park. It will take Cuthbert’s considerable talents (and his knowledge of Virgil) to solve the case.
The Silent House of Sleep by Allen Gaw, is the first in a series featuring Cuthbert. It is a different type of crime thriller in that it focuses on the work of Cuthbert, the pathologist, rather than the police. Fair warning: ... View Full Review
Who can you believe when you’re surrounded by people whose profession is to pretend?
In Sun Trap by Rachel Wolf, the deceptions start early. Aspiring actress Ellie has agreed to go to on the trip pretending to be her friend Phoebe after she falls ill. It’s Ellie’s dream job: her first acting job in a major Hollywood film with a starry cast filming in Abu Dhabi.
Ellie doesn’t need much convincing, given the luxury hotel and all-star cast, which includes her favourite actor of all time, Elijah Hanneghan. She ... View Full Review
It is said that a woman is broken into a million pieces on becoming a mother. But how does a woman reassemble herself after that happens? For writer Kerri Andrews, her reconstruction begins on a series of walks in England and Scotland.
Pathfinding is part walking guide, part nature writing, part memoir, and part history lesson. Once a keen walker, Andrews finds at the outset that the demands of motherhood have nearly eliminated any chance to do the thing she loves. But she realises the path back to herself begins by walking again.
Andrews’ lyrical nature writing leaps off ... View Full Review
Thea is a serial killer with a conscience. But also is a serial killer with a difference: she can murder truly awful people but also give life to people more deserving by only touching them.
An Ethical Guide to Murder by debut novelist Jenny Morris, is a fresh addition to the bookshelves. It is part crime novel and part philosophical treatise, but it also has a love story, displays of enormous wealth and some police procedurals thrown in for good measure. It’s a glorious patchwork of genres and is all the better for it.
Once she discovers ... View Full Review
Sarah and Caleb Linwood have been together for 17 years. They fell in love in high school, and then married when they were 19. But now they’re 31 and their marriage is in trouble. To fix it, they join a week-long hiking / couples counselling trip.
The only problem is neither is remotely outdoorsy, or good at communicating their feelings to each other.
Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young charts the history of a love story, with chapter flashbacks to their teenage years, told against the progress of their week in the woods on the “Reignite” trip.&... View Full Review
For three years, criminal psychiatrist Tamsin Shaw has lain in a vegetative state where she can’t move or see, but can hear. Everything.
From her bed in her rehabilitation facility, she closely monitors the movements of her visitors: her husband, Jamie; her best friend, Lucia; her boss and friend, Dan; her nurse, Milena; and (most unwelcome) her former patient, Richard. From these visits, she attempts to piece together what is happening, but they’re all hiding crucial information from her.
The Voices by Natalie Chandler is a taut thriller where both the reader and Tamsin try ... View Full Review
When a Bristol bookseller is found murdered in his shop, Detective Sergeant George Cross of Avon and Somerset Police learns that the bookselling can be a treacherous business.
The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan is the seventh outing for Cross, who admits that the only thing he collects is convictions. Although his methods might be unique, his record speaks for itself.
The unfortunate bookseller of the title is one Ed Squire, son of Torquil Squire, an established and respected rare bookseller in Bristol. There is no shortage of suspects for Cross to consider. The family business is struggling, since the bookselling ... View Full Review
Heartbreak is something that everyone will experience at least once, like it or not.
I can still remember with acute clarity the first time my heart got broken at 17. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to go anywhere. The only thing I wanted to do was cry, which I did as magnificently as any teenager going through their first heartbreak would do. Spoiler alert: I got over it.
Elephants on My Chest: Or Why Heartbreak is Worth it by Lucia Zamolo is just the ... View Full Review
A cosy Christmas mystery featuring all the traditional tropes: snowstorms, warm meals by a blazing fire, charming inns, a large manor house, possible ghosts and Christmas traditions. The only difference? This mystery is populated entirely by cats.
The Ghost of Christmas Paws by Mandy Morton is the fourth book in the No. 2. Feline Detective Agency series. If you love cats and are a fan of anthropomorphism, this is the series for you.
Cat detectives Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick/assistant Tilly Jenkins have been dispatched to snowy Cornwall to solve a mystery. Lady Eloise Crabstock-Singe, the lady of ... View Full Review
A walk down Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan is a walk through modern-day London, with all of its characters and complexities.
There’s no getting around the fact that this is a substantial novel, both in length and ambition. The reader is tipped off to this at the very start, when greeted with a list of 59 characters on the first two pages. Like Charles Dickens before him, O’Hagan is interested in all of them—from upper-class aristocracy to penniless pensioners.
London itself isn’t listed as a character, but it should be. Caledonian ... View Full Review
This novel needs to come with a health warning: “Will make you ravenously hungry.”
Butter by Asakao Yuzuki, and translated by Polly Barton, is a novel of multitudes. Part mystery thriller, part food blog and part feminist manifesto, this Japanese best seller based on a true story delivers on all of these disparate parts.
Manako Kajii is a gourmet cook and convicted serial killer. Now held at the Tokyo Detention Centre, everyone wants to hear her story, but she has adamantly refused to speak to the press. Until enterprising journalist Rika Machida asks for her beef stew recipe&... View Full Review
Short story collections can be like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. In Maps of Imaginary Towns, SJ Bradley creates a compelling mosaic of ordinary lives as told through 16 short stories.
The stories are poignant, with many of them featuring protagonists working in thankless jobs, like the council worker who is trying to keep the community music classes going even though their building has been condemned. Or the Cineworld employee in Wakefield who dreams of becoming an actor in London. Or the university worker trying to track down the recipient of an ... View Full Review
