The Fourth Wall Syndrome by Martin Gunn is a fast paced sci fi novel. It’s one that if it was a film I’d be behind the sofa. But in spite of it not being my genre of choice I found it held me, kept me turning the pages, and what’s more, thoughts of it kept me awake last night. Arghhh.
Renowned psychoanalyst Doctor Barnabus Middlebrook has called a high powered clandestine meeting to discuss a patient of St. Claire’s psychiatric hospital. The person in question is Alice Denham, a young woman in her mid-twenties who had everything to live for. She had a good job and had recently moved into her new home with husband John. Everything was going fine but then suddenly in the space of two weeks, she was driven out of her mind and had to be sectioned. Little did they know that Alice’s experiences would have far reaching implications for the human race and indeed the planet.
Find it on http://amzn.to/2fOVeoT ebook and print
Someone is Watching by Joy Fielding
Another one to grip you by the throat. A smart and savvy private investigator is attacked after which she – Bailey Carpenter – becomes imprisoned in her Miami apartment. Imprisoned by what? Paranoia. Everywhere she looks she seems to see her attacker, especially in the apartment opposite.
Yep, indeed someone is watching her… I won’t tell you anything else. But honestly, you will hardly breathe if you keep it for yourself. Or if you must give it to someone, read it before you do so.
Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of Charley’s Web, Heartstopper, Mad River Road and others.
Zaffre £7.99 / e book available.
Have You Been Good? by Vanessa Nicolson
Something different, but equally compelling. Have You Been Good is a memoir by the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Vanessa Nicolson was born to an illustrious name, and to unhappy parents. Ben Nicolson, her father was homosexual, and unsurprisingly his marriage to his Italian wife soon disintegrated. Nicolson charts her fractured, or is it damaged childhood, her wild youth which rather put me in mind of her grandmother’s ability to throw her hat over a windmill. Then, in her own turn, a mother she had to experience the appalling loss of her daughter, Rosa.
A beautifully written journey through a fraught and uncertain childhood, the result of imperfect parents, but what parent isn’t after all? And then onto her own experiences in that same role. It might not sound a laugh a minute but amazingly there is a bleak humour amongst the honesty and energy – because that’s what comes across; the energy of the writer.
www.grantabooks.com £9.99