Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores baking, gardening, and caring for her infant son, while Sam pursues a new career in film. In their idyllic house in the Swedish woods, they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they've built for themselves, away from New York and the events that overshadowed their happiness there.

You Were Made For This starts as an picturesque story of marital and parental bliss. Newlyweds Merry and Sam have built a life worthy of an inspired Instagram following. Wholesome living, fresh Swedish air, and home grown nutritional meals.  But read a few chapters in and the split narrative starts to expose the cracks in their relationship. Merry is pulled from a Stepford-wife cookie cutter and gives every impression of being the perfect housewife and adoring mother. However her own chapters reveal a life at odds with her smothered feelings and the controlling personality of her domineering husband, Sam.

Enter best-friend Frank, a clever plot device and accelerated antagonist who throws a outsider's sharp perspective on Sam and Merry's constructed reality. The book takes a jolting turn from golden bliss to dark despair. Frank and Merry's bond is both suffocating and essential. They need each other with equal desperation, using the other for competitiveness and confirmation of self-worth. It's ugly and compelling to watch the two women push each other to the limits. One devastating event sends the novel careening into a downward spiral of loathing and disaster. 

This thriller is an exploration of the limits of devotion and the overbearing dangers of rivalry. I'll warn you now, read this book with caution. Finding your way out of the woods will be hard! 

There's no real way around saying this. The Pisces is about a passionate and erotic love affair with a mer-man. Hats off to the cover designer who really nailed the brief.

As a floundering PhD student, Lucy is despondent, unfulfilled and recently heartbroken after her long term relationship ends with a doughnut fueled breakdown. She spends the summer house-sitting for her sister and the caveat for staying at the beach house is that she must look after herself and attend group therapy. During the sessions she becomes familiar with a group of women who are all working through commitment issues, disastrous Tinder experiences and sex addictions.  Making parodies of modern 'triggers', author Melissa Broder throws perspective on the Californian, self-help, crystal cuddling, pill popping community of Venice Beach. 

It's Lucy's moonlit walks that leads her to the rocks where she meets an enigmatic swimmer. Beyond the scales and the intense passion that surrounds her nightly encounters, The Pisces reflects on a society currently in grips of an collective state of anxiety. Beyond Lucy's growing dependence on her new relationship, deeper metaphors for mental health begin to surface as the novel shifts to reflect the more traditional and fatal stories of mermaids. Historically these stories have always been tragedies rather than romances so I felt the pressure building to second-guess what Lucy's real motives were for nurturing her new affair. 

The Pisces is loud and un-apologetically primal. Some scenes were uncomfortable to read and if I met Lucy in a bar I'd be eye-rolling and exiting.  I spent a lot of time questioning if her experiences with the man of the sea were even real or if she was having a psychotic episode for a whole summer. But then I gave into it and went with the flow, putting aside any doubts I had that this might just be The Little Mermaid for Mr Grey. 

Read this book with an open mind and allow Melissa's story to pull you under.

"In the arid summer heat, four children – Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom – find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the children’s lives twist into something unrecognisable as the outside begins to bear down on them."

I'm going to start by saying I love Ian McEwan. I fell in love with On Chesil Beach and I think he could write my order down at Nando's and make it sound beautiful. I cried throughout Atonement and when The Cement Garden was chosen at work for our book club, I did a little jig for joy. 

But I'm going to fling it out there and say this book gave me the real heebie jeebies. It's so short you can read it in one sitting and it's just as bewitching as you would expect a novel from Ian McEwan to be. But... But it's full of underage incest. And death. And a parent buried in the cellar. It's so jammed full of darkness that you gulp for air when you finish. I'm glad I read it but I'm now scouring our bookshelves for a lighter taste to cleanse my pallet. Do read it if you're a die hard fan or you have a particularly curious nature, but don't say I didn't warn you...

"This is a story of something like survival..." Sal planned it for almost a year before they ran. She nicked an Ordnance Survey map from the school library. She bought a compass, a Bear Grylls knife, waterproofs and a first aid kit from Amazon using stolen credit cards. She read the SAS Survival Handbook and watched loads of YouTube videos. And now Sal knows a lot of stuff. Like how to build a shelter and start a fire. How to estimate distances, snare rabbits and shoot an airgun. And how to protect her sister, Peppa. Because Peppa is ten, which is how old Sal was when Robert started on her. 

Disclaimer: I actually finished reading Sal last week but I've been thinking about how best to describe it. It's sharp, beautiful, harrowing, uplifting and exciting. Mick Kitson paints a story of survival that balances on the bridge between childhood and adulthood.  On the brink of being a teen, Sal and her younger sister Peppa are in the deepest woods of Scotland. Using all her SAS know-how and cut throat intuition, Sal has taken unspeakable steps to keep both her younger sister and herself safe.

Although this story is predominately a woodland adventure story, there are some really tough topics at the centre of the witty narrative that explain why the sisters have had to go to these extremes. It's an incredibly touching debut novel. Peppa's childhood innocence and absurdly crude language clashes with Sal's own older and sadly inappropriate understanding of the world. There is a cathartic healing absorbed from the woodland and it's with time and patience that the girls come to understand that their lives can move on.  You instinctively feel protective of them and you have to hope for the best. Mick Kitson's writing is laced with enough tension that you're never entirely sure how it's all going to come to an end.

This is a book written with teens in mind but honestly I think it will appeal to a much broader audience. It has shades of Lord of the Flies mixed in with Sisterland and its unashamedly British in both setting (rural Scotland at its wildest) and in its slang terms. Put this one on your reading list!



Sal is published by Canongate and out now.

I had another reading drought at the beginning of March which saw me starting numerous books only to abandon them or get distracted by a zillion other things. Luckily a train ride home from my parents' house at the start of the week meant that I had very little phone signal and my Kindle was fully charged and loaded with NetGalley goodies. I selected The Fear on a whim, readying myself for another book that wouldn't keep me focused. I was wrong! I've read C.L. Taylor's thriller in four days, every commute and spare moment I have been tearing through this dark but ultimately satisfying read.

Focusing on the disturbing topic of grooming, The Fear is split into multiple narratives of the three women who are immediately impacted by manipulative Mike Hughes. Lou Wandsworth was his first victim over eighteen years ago. The passing of Lou's father sees her return to her hometown and confronted by the man who abused her, living as a free man after spending five years in prison. Thirteen year old Chloe is his current victim and Lou tries to intervene with catastrophic consequences. I won't mention the third woman because it's pivotal to the plot and I've gotten better at blurting out spoilers!


Although the subject matter is uncomfortable and disturbing, C.L. Taylor has delivered a controversially compelling story. The female characters transition seamlessly from vulnerability to defiance, and the power shifts between the sexes flip so quickly you are never sure how its going to end. There are frequent moments of genius that just have you silently applauding. I could definitely see this being adapted for TV, the tension throughout is palpable and C.L. Taylor pauses and switches narrators at perfect times to keep you on the edge of your seat. If you enjoyed Fiona Barton's The Widow then you will love this book!

The Customs House by Andrew Motion has been on my TBR pile for the past few months. I keep being drawn back to this collection of poetry, written partly inspired by soldiers' experiences from 1914, his father's own experiences of D-Day and then much later on, inspired by marriage.

Andrew depicts landscapes and topographies which are wrapped up in the intimate memories of marriages. The rolling waves born from Antartica, crashing against the East Coast, the crowded streets of Brooklyn, and significant Waterloo Village.

Montauk is by far my favourite poem from the collection. It traces the lives of waves formed in Antartica, across the oceans to be stopped by the shoreline that he sits on with his wife. The rolling motion bringing him back to a contented day watching the breakers.

I don't spend enough time on poetry, often racing through fiction titles, pulled along by a heady pace and edgy characters. But there is something quite calming about reading poetry on a packed carriage. You can read several between stops, or go over one a few times to find the rhythm or secondary meanings. And still feel like your brain has had some nourishment, which aside from the heavy dose of morning caffeine can only ever be a good thing!

'I can feel it swimming through my veins like glitter ... it's liquid gold.'

Lexi Volkov is a socialite hotel heiress who finds herself admitted to the Clarity Centre, a rehabilitation unit for the under twenty-threes. In denial of her drug problem she lashes out and initially resists the help of the doctors and staff. 

As the days in isolation pass and Lexi's body goes through the shocks of withdrawals, she begins to assess her choices. On meeting the other residents of the Clarity Centre, each with their own demons, Lexi is confronted with a crossroads, leave the Clarity Centre at the end of her 70 day stay and revert to her drug fuelled highs, or tread the path of recovery and stay clean.

This book is both important and needed for a generation that has had so much pressure to conform and perform. It doesn't shy away from exploring the dark, ugly sides of addiction and there are heavy segments that deal with death and grief. A note from Juno at the beginning of the novel points readers to support lines if the subject matter triggers any reactions. 

Addiction is not portrayed as an easily solved problem, but instead recovery is presented as an ongoing process - one with setbacks but a journey nonetheless. Juno's cast of characters may all be flawed in their own ways but you root for each and every one of them. 

Clean really packs a punch, at times incredibly delicate, at other times shocking, this is the book for any teenager who feels they don't belong.

A thrilling YA thriller that leaps from suburban England to the favelas of Rio.  The Truth & Lies of Ella Black has all the necessary ingredients to fly you through the pages and keep you wanting more. 

Ella Black is an ordinary school girl living in Kent with her two best friends. She's quiet and nice and often over looked when the popular girls are around. 

She kills small animals that her cat brings home because the voice in her head tells her to. 

The voice in her head is Bella, or Bad Ella. Ella has to work very hard in front of people to keep Bella under control. Not even her parents know about how bad Bella wants to be. So when Ella is pulled out of school by her parents and driven to the airport and subsequently lands in Rio de Janiero, she's certain her parents have found out her dark secret. 

Only, her parents have a secret far worse that they have been keeping from Ella. After the best night of her life with an American boy she met at the hotel, Ella's world tumbles apart. On receiving devastating news, and lashing out in violence, Ella flees and runs away to the favelas of Rio. What ensues is an intense rollercoaster of subterfuge and duplicity. 

The Truth & Lies of Ella Black is a dark force to be reckoned with. There's just the right amount of teen angst, romance and identity crisis without bordering onto Gossip Girl territory. The twist at the end was brilliant although I felt that the epilogue was unnecessary (no spoilers!).

I adored We Were Liars (heartbreaking, I literally read it in one sitting and cried at the end). I had high hopes for Genuine Fraud and I wasn't disappointed. 

This is a psychological thriller with a pathological liar at its heart.  Jule is the protagonist (or antagonist if you want to be fancy) and she has the ruthless survival skills of a trained assassin. Except, she isn't an assassin but a girl who has charmed and wormed her way into the life of one of New York's social elites, Imogen. 

Jule wants what Imogen has and she will do anything to get it. 

Anything.

E. Lockhart's writing is alluring and although Jule was highly unlikeable (sorry, I'm pretty sure you aren't meant to bond with her).Her motives are murky and her cut throat survival instincts were both horrifying and impressive.

Genuine Fraud is both a "feminist thriller" according to Lena Dunham, and a joy ride into the life of the rich and famous. You will feel like you are in a washing machine of deception (literally I got so confused at one point) but stick with it, the ending will have you gripped.