There’s Nothing Wrong With Her By Kate Weinberg
When Vita falls ill with a sickness that nobody can diagnose, a 500-year-old Renaissance poet begins to appear by her bedside. In her delirium, she isn’t sure whether he is real or a figment of her cloudy imagination. The ensuing journey is a deep dive into mental health, buried trauma, friendship and love. Early readers are raving about this heartfelt, comic, important novel.
Long Island Compromise By Taffy Brodesser-Akner
This is the second novel from Brodesser-Akner, whose first, Fleishman is in Trouble, was a raging hot bestseller and recently made into a TV series. In this one, a wealthy businessman is kidnapped from his perfect Long Island home, held for ransom and eventually returned to his family. Forty years later the impact of that horrendous event resurfaces and the family is forced to confront the truth that money doesn’t buy happiness.
Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder In An Exhausted Age By Katherine May
This non-fiction book, by the thoughtful author Katherine May, is an exploration of what life could like if we weren’t always ‘parenting while working, battling anxiety, feeling overwhelmed by the news-cycle and increasingly isolated, bone-tired and depleted’. It will encourage you to rest and reset and to spot the pockets of beauty in our frightening world. Food for the soul.
These Days By Lucy Caldwell
This beautiful, prize-winning novel, set in Northern Ireland during the Second World War, follows two sisters doing their best to survive, thrive and keep love alive in the aftermath of the Belfast Blitz. The Guardian says: ‘Caldwell doesn’t describe characters: with great deftness she incarnates them on the page. Empathy lights the words.’
Family Lore By Elizabeth Acevedo
In the days running up to a large family gathering in New York, several generations of women find themselves inclined to ponder what it takes to live a good life. Taking in the struggles associated with everything from secrets and lies to infidelity and infertility, this book is a wonderful study of the ‘inseparability of love and grief’.
Horse By Geraldine Brooks
This novel is based on the true story of a record-breaking thoroughbred horse, Lexington. Two parts of one narrative, the first set in 1850 and the second in 2019, are linked by that famous horse and the result is a gripping look at the legacy of slavery and racism in the US.
