A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE BY NALINI SINGH: pub Gollancz pb £14.99 ebook/audio
This sophisticated, creatively imagined novel is high on the list of excellent books Frost Magazine recommends to enjoy during many wonderful hours of Lockdown reading.
A well crafted and compelling novel of the paranormal set in New Zealand, in particular Golden Cove. All is well in this tight knit community when trust is shattered by a happening: several ‘vanished’ bodies.
What’s happened? Who is to blame? Can they go on, and pretend things are as they always have been in spite of their damaged trust in one ? For years they manage, but then a young woman disappears. Without trace – again. the situation has to be resolved, not matter what is revealed.
Beautifully written, page turning, and emotionally intelligent. Bravo.
STASI WINTER BY DAVID YOUNG: Pub Zaffre pb £7.99 and eBook
Set in East Germany in 1978 … just the period and place galvanizes interest. This novel takes place in country where state power is absolute, law a joke, and the past re-invented to suit the supreme ‘beings’.
So, what on earth does Major Muller of the People’s Police do when faced with the death of a woman – a which is proclaimed accidental, while every fibre of her being tells her it is not so.
If she chooses integrity over her own safety and that of her family, where will it all end? Will her stand against injustice solve the crime, but bring about her family’s destruction. An age old battle of integrity versus state dictats.
Page turning and tense because the situation, though imagined, is actually based on these endless choices those within the Iron Curtain had to face.
This is the final novel in the award-winning Stasi series which I have so enjoyed. But, relax, it can also be read as a stand alone, much like the wonderful Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr. Fabulous – both Young and Kerr.
LITTLE DARLINGS BY MELANIE GOLDING: pb£7.99 ebook and audio
This keep you pretty tense on your sofa, but check behind it first. An atmospheric chilling novel. I find books about children unsettling, but this might not be the case for you.
Lauren is alone on the maternity ward, having given birth to twins. She has a heightened fear of something happenings to her babies. Or is it heightened, don’t we all become fearful? But something tips the balance of imagination into something more concrete. Or is this also her imagination which has mutated to become paranoia?
Is this a fresh perspective on modern motherhood, postnatal psychosis, or is it my imagination. Arghhh. A terrifying world is steadily revealed.
Review by Annie Clarke. Author of the Home Front Girls series. Pub Penguin/Random house. ebook May 14. pb now 23rd July.