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Find out moreThere’s something about a debut. The team at LoveReading adore discovering a new favourite author. Can you imagine the blood, sweat, tears and love that has gone into the process of becoming an author? Here you can be in at the start and then recommend your favourites far and wide.
The book world has been excited about this debut for some time, and for good reason as it is such an intensely powerful and emotional read. Lex Gracie is Girl A, the girl who escaped the House of Horrors, as an adult she now has to confront the past all over again. This is a book that deserves your time, don’t rush, even though it is so good it calls for you to race through. Lex narrates, her clear concise words transferred to my thoughts with piercing clarity. Abigail Dean writes with a devastatingly eloquent pen, she examines the cause and effect of power, abuse, and trauma. When a book alters the patterns of your thoughts, if only for a short time, it deserves to be read, to be felt, even if those feelings are harrowing at times. When I reached the end, I slowed, stopped, and after a few moments returned to the last few chapters to read and again allow the words to enter and become fully absorbed in my heart. I’m not sure if everyone will follow the same fork in the path that I took as I read, and that is what makes this book so special, the reader will make their own decision as to where they step with Lex. A LoveReading Star Book, Girl A is challenging, thought-provoking and above all a beautifully compelling read.
In Baxter's Beach, Barbados, Lala's grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers. For Wilma, it's the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result. When Lala grows up, she sees it offers hope - of life after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man. And Mira Whalen? It's about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and she didn't get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all. HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE is the powerful, intense story of three marriages, and of a beautiful island paradise where, beyond the white sand beaches and the wealthy tourists, lies poverty, menacing violence and the story of the sacrifices some women make to survive.
Katie Hale is our January 2020 Debut Author of the Month. Click to find out more about Katie on our blog. Oh… my… word, this is one fabulous debut! I found a deceptively simple, and stark dystopian foray into a world blighted by bombs and sickness. Monster is completely alone until one day she finds a child. She becomes mother and passes on her knowledge, but are her mothering skills being received in the way she is expecting them to be? Told in the first person, Katie Hale has created short chapters where thoughts scatter, bounce, zigzag. I filed away feelings and emotions as I read, each within touching distance, lying in wait to prod and provoke. This feels honest, as though looking at a future just within grasp, or back to a history that has already happened. The feelings are raw, sometimes painful, yet relatable and believable. I found the premise of this novel absolutely fascinating, I explored interpretation of meaning, motherhood, and thoughts on the basic cycle of life. ‘My Name is Monster’ is poignant, moving and wonderfully different, it is also incredibly intimate, readable and surprisingly beautiful, I adored it. Visit our 'Women's Words - 60+ works of feminist-minded fiction' to explore our collection of feminist-minded fiction from around the world, and across centuries.
Our January 2021 Book Club Recommendation Click here to see our Reading Group Questions. A complete joy of a debut, bright, observational and incredibly intimate, this book has lodged itself in my heart. Take twelve independent yet linked stories over twelve months about people who are connected to a London park community. The focus changes with each month, allowing individual stories to shine, yet they add up to a vibrantly wonderful whole. Gemma Reeves is beautifully eloquent, she has the ability with a few words, to give you admittance to someone’s soul. While she creates penetrating access to each person, there isn’t always a conclusion, instead life carries on, suggesting potential pathways. I fell in love with this powerfully blended infusion of life. The variety of characters, in age, personality, and beliefs crackle with energy. A new character might wander in for a few moments and then star in the next tale. Some connections may be obvious and linger, others lightly touch before moving on. The stories themselves tug at heartstrings and encourage thoughts to roam, the ending is simply divine and brought tears to my eyes. Thought-provoking and emotionally intelligent, Victoria Park slips with glorious ease onto our LoveReading Star Books list and is a Liz Pick of the Month, it really is very special indeed.
Shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Wickedly funny and devastatingly moving, 26a is an extraordinary first novel. Part fairytale, part nightmare, it moves from the mundane to the magical, the particular to the universal with exceptional flair and imagination. A coming-of-age novel with a difference. Head to our 'Black Lit Matters' list to find more must-read novels by black writers.
Death stalks the medina of Marrakech . . . Marrakech, August. It is the start of Ramadan, the hottest in memory. Among the few foreigners left in the sweltering city are a riad owner, her French boyfriend and an English girl whose bag has been stolen after a hen weekend. At the local commissariat 24-year old detective Karim Belkacem is struggling to fast while holding down two jobs to pay for his sister's wedding. On the day that the English girl comes to him for help, a Moroccan girl is found dead, her body dumped in a handcart. Investigating, Karim uncovers a world of shadowy predators and ancient secrets hidden behind the high walls of the medina.
Winner of the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation. Helen Fraser, Chair of Judges, said:“An amazing and ambitious first novel that impressed the judges with its inventiveness and energy. This is an extraordinary new voice – this novel will move and astonish the reader.”
One of the Top 10 books in the Lovereading Readers’ Choice Book of the Year 2014. One of our Books of the Year 2014. 59-year old Ove is quite possibly one of the grumpiest people you’ll meet but, he has been an upstanding pillar of the community for decades. The last six months have taken their toll and he decides perhaps that life is not worth living. Ove lives in a residential area of which he is fanatical about maintaining and keeping to the rules. A family of a pregnant mother, two daughters and an IT consultant dad move in next door. Ove resents them. He resents everything and everyone and so he plans his death but each attempt is thwarted mostly by people needing help. Ove is a very practical man and so he helps, yet he remains exasperated that other people’s lives are beginning to intrude upon him. Quirky, uplifting, charming, sad, life-affirming and totally irresistible, this is a perfect gem that will leave you with a spring in your step.
59-year old Ove is quite possibly one of the grumpiest people you’ll meet but, he has been an upstanding pillar of the community for decades. The last six months have taken their toll and he decides perhaps that life is not worth living. Ove lives in a residential area of which he is fanatical about maintaining and keeping to the rules. A family of a pregnant mother, two daughters and an IT consultant dad move in next door. Ove resents them. He resents everything and everyone and so he plans his death but each attempt is thwarted mostly by people needing help. Ove is a very practical man and so he helps, yet he remains exasperated that other people’s lives are beginning to intrude upon him. Quirky, uplifting, charming, sad, life-affirming and totally irresistible, this is a perfect gem that will leave you with a spring in your step. ~ Sarah Broadhurst One of the Top 10 books in the Lovereading Readers’ Choice Book of the Year 2014. One of our Books of the Year 2014. Explore our '80+ Books That Deliver a Hug' listicle for more feel-good or uplifting books.
Based on her great-great grandparents’ experiences, Tammye Huf’s A More Perfect Union is a heart-rending, soul-stirring story of the love between a black slave and an Irish immigrant. A lucid, bold tale of the despicable brutality of slavery, personal conflicts, and a bond that will not be broken. Henry O’Toole fled Ireland in 1848 to escape the famine. On arriving in New York, “America stabs me with homesickness” and he can’t find a job - “Every day it’s the same. No Irish”. Compelled to flee the city, he changes his surname to the English-sounding ‘Taylor’ and heads to Virginia. House slave Sarah is separated from her Momma and brother when she’s sold as a “quick-cleaning-slave-who-don’t-get-sick”. She and Henry meet when he comes seeking work as a blacksmith at the plantation she’s been sold to. Here Henry is moved by the sound of slaves singing at night, while Sarah paces her hoe in the kitchen garden to “the rhythmic strike of the blacksmith’s hammer”. The stirring attraction between them is palpable, but theirs is a forbidden relationship - inter-racial marriage is illegal, and viewed as an abomination. What’s more, she’s owned by another man. The couple are in an excruciating situation, their complex personal conflicts evoked with shattering clarity. Sarah has to reconcile loving a man whose white skin represents her oppression, and she’s also ostracised by fellow slaves. Then there’s the searing exchange when Sarah sees Henry making neck rings and shackles. When he protests that he has no choice, that he needs to earn money, that he knows what it is to be shackled by poverty, Sarah’s response captures the despicable inhumanity of enslavement: “’I know you been through a hard, hungry life,’ she says. ‘I want you to understand that slave suffering is a different thing. When somebody owns you, there ain’t nothing they can’t do to you.’” Both their voices are conjured with brilliant authenticity, and their story builds to an agonisingly edgy crescendo as the risks they take are as immense as their love. I cannot recommend this enough. Head to our 'Black Lit Matters' list to find more must-read novels by black writers.
Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2019 Exploring themes of ownership and abandonment, Eleanor Anstruther's bestselling debut is a fictionalised account of the true story of Enid Campbell (1892-1964), granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll. Interweaving one significant day in 1964 with a decade during the interwar period, A Perfect Explanation gets to the heart of what it is to be bound by gender, heritage and tradition, to fight, to lose, to fight again. In a world of privilege, truth remains the same; there are no heroes and villains, only people misunderstood. Here, in the pages of this extraordinary book where the unspoken is conveyed with vivid simplicity, lies a story that will leave you reeling.
A deeply reflective and moving debut novel about a Pakistani immigrant family in America trying to find out what happened to their rebellious son. Featured in Episode 4 of the LoveReading Podcast.
One of the Top 10 books in the Lovereading Readers’ Choice Book of the Year 2014. One of our Books of the Year 2014. Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2014. A year in the life of a northern British Mormon family. You’ll certainly learn a lot about the Mormon church but the thrust of the novel is how a family of four kids with a housewife mother and a devout bishop father cope with the death of four year old Issy. It is Jacob’s seventh birthday when Issy becomes unwell. Mum is busy so the two teenage kids, Zippy and Al, are left to mind her. She dies of meningitis. This is lightly written, funny in places, lots of teenage issues and questions of faith, but it is young Jacob’s beliefs that stand out. The Costa Judges said Bray's book was “a deeply moving story about grief and faith, toldwith the lightest of touches.” A 'Piece of Passion' from the publisher... Picking the right words to help persuade you to read A Song For Issy Bradley feels a big responsibility because I think it is such a special novel. Here are three of the reasons why I love it. 1) Each member of the Bradley family feels vividly alive - it took me back to the awful embarrassment of being a teenage girl; made me want to hug seven-year-old Jacob and experience the devastation of a bereaved mother. 2) It made me think. This is a novel about family – but it’s also about faith and doubt and what you do when everything you’ve believe in changes. 3) The writing is beautiful. I’ve read it several times now and each time I notice new lines that make me think, ‘yes, that is exactly right’. - Jocasta Hamilton, Publishing Director, Hutchinson A letter from the Author... A Song for Issy Bradley is a meditation on doubt and faith and longed-for miracles. I used to imagine that it was also my personal farewell to the miraculous but, as I reflect on the Bradleys’ story, I notice a tacit acknowledgement that sometimes, in very exceptional circumstances, incredible things just might be possible. - Carys Bray, Southport, October 2013. Cick here to read the full letter. July 2014 Debut of the Month.
Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2015. May 2015 Debut of the Month. A year in the life of a northern British Mormon family. You’ll certainly learn a lot about the Mormon church but the thrust of the novel is how a family of four kids with a housewife mother and a devout bishop father cope with the death of four year old Issy. It is Jacob’s seventh birthday when Issy becomes unwell. Mum is busy so the two teenage kids, Zippy and Al, are left to mind her. She dies of meningitis. This is lightly written, funny in places, lots of teenage issues and questions of faith, but it is young Jacob’s beliefs that stand out. ~ Sarah Broadhurst One of the Top 10 books in the Lovereading Readers’ Choice Book of the Year 2014. One of our Books of the Year 2014. Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2014. The Costa Judges said Bray's book was “a deeply moving story about grief and faith, toldwith the lightest of touches.” A 'Piece of Passion' from the publisher... Picking the right words to help persuade you to read A Song For Issy Bradley feels a big responsibility because I think it is such a special novel. Here are three of the reasons why I love it. 1) Each member of the Bradley family feels vividly alive - it took me back to the awful embarrassment of being a teenage girl; made me want to hug seven-year-old Jacob and experience the devastation of a bereaved mother. 2) It made me think. This is a novel about family – but it’s also about faith and doubt and what you do when everything you’ve believe in changes. 3) The writing is beautiful. I’ve read it several times now and each time I notice new lines that make me think, ‘yes, that is exactly right’. - Jocasta Hamilton, Publishing Director, Hutchinson A letter from the Author... A Song for Issy Bradley is a meditation on doubt and faith and longed-for miracles. I used to imagine that it was also my personal farewell to the miraculous but, as I reflect on the Bradleys’ story, I notice a tacit acknowledgement that sometimes, in very exceptional circumstances, incredible things just might be possible. - Carys Bray, Southport, October 2013. Cick here to read the full letter.
Even in wartime the customer comes first at Marlow's department store. It's 1941 and young Lily Collins is starting work in Midlands department store Marlow's, whose gleaming facade has fascinated her since childhood. As the air raid sirens blare, Lily learns the ropes from her sophisticated boss Miss Frobisher alongside shy fellow junior Gladys. But her burgeoning friendship with young salesman Jim draws her into a swirl of secrets within the store. And with the war progressing to crisis point, Cedric Marlow and his staff must battle nightly bombings and the absence of loved ones to keep going. From a former writer of The Archers comes a novel that weaves together a powerful sense of community and a vivid evocation of a time when every man, woman and child was doing their bit.
All The Hidden Truths is Claire Askew’s debut novel and the start of the DI Birch series set in Edinburgh, It was the winner of the McIlvanney Debut Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger. This is a series that is worth putting on your must-read list, smart, sharp, and so very readable, it comes with a highly recommended tag from me. Books in The DI Birch Series: 1. All The Hidden Truths 2. What You Pay For 3. Cover Your Tracks Serial Reader? Check out our 'Fall in Love With a Book Series' collection to find amazing book series to dive in to.
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