The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine:

The lives of three Belfast women intertwine - Frankie, a care home kid now living a life of luxury.  Miriam, recently widowed and Bronagh a charity worker.  Their sons sexually assault a young girl and the crime is attempted to be brushed under the carpet.  

There is enough here for a powerful read, but sadly this isn’t it.  The first person narrative has been done to death but for my money only Anne Enright can do it with any verve or wit.  It’s pitched as a state of the nation novel, but the narrative isn’t clear enough to follow.  The writing is too opaque, figurative to actually inform the reader what is going on.  

I would also draw attention to the characterisation in the novel.  The women - although with ulterior motives - are seen as cold, driven, unhappy.  The only real male character in the novel is Boogie (a taxi driver, the mother of Misty, the girl who is sexually assaulted).  His depiction is pure poverty porn.  Plus Misty does camwork as a sideline and the concept of misogyny, with regard to sex work and male violence is muddied.  Misty’s main client is an American.  And although we could all throw shade at America, his depiction is pure Southern fried cliche. 

It’s a novel of caricature, obscurity and coldness.  It’s published by Hodder And Stoughton on June 19th and I thank them for a preview copy.  #thebenefactors.  

 Beautyland by Marie Helene-Bertino:

Adina is born when Voyager 1 launches.  Her birth connects her to an alien civilisation and she reports back to them about life on Earth and how humans cope with it.  The novel follows her through life, love and loss. 

The best books I read last year (The Ministry Of Time, The Husbands, Rare Singles) all had a relatively simple idea, but had rich, mysterious depths.  Beautyland is in that class. It’s a strangely beautiful, beautifully strange book.  It’s expansive enough to have a neat framing structure (Adina’s life is structured alongside the life cycle of a star), but tricky enough to have some original ideas - Adina reports back to her masters using a second-hand fax machine for example.  

Plus, this is a novel that lives in the last half century of American history, but is not a nostalgia trip.  Overriding it all is something genuinely brave.  The concept that the aliens - a hive mind of souls - actually exist, or it is all a paracosm.  And although it is strongly suggested that both Adina is neurodiverse and asexual, Bertino does enough to suggest she is genuinely not of this earth.  

A light, yet nourishing and incredibly moving read.  It’s published by Random House on 27th March and I sincerely thank them for making me cry.  #beautyland

 Liverpool And The Unmaking Of Britain by Sam Wetherell:

Regular readers will know I am a Liverpudlian.  And I will regularly consume any book on it and enjoy the bizarre process of reading about your own history.  This is a grand book with an overarching concept of how a city rose and fell, rose again and still might fall into the sea.  

The book runs from 1945 to 2008 and amongst the disasters such as Hillborough, there is Toxteth, the rise of Militant - a group who literally ran the city into the ground, whilst profiting others - and it’s time as Capital Of Culture, overlapping with The Credit Crunch.  

And yes, the more unpalatable aspects of the city’s past such as the slave trade, the mass deportations of Chinese sailors after the Second World War, the racism that leads to Toxteth… but also on civic kindness such as the long-standing LGBTQ community during the early years of AIDS (gay dismissed as a ‘bourgeois concept’ by Militant and the pioneering treatment of drug users.

It ends on a mirroring note, with roughly the same amount of people employed in tourism as the docks at its height.  Speke could have been Disneyland, literally.  And Liverpool Waters will be a city within a city at the end of this century, but may only last a generation before climate change erases both from history. 

This is not to say it is a depressing read, it is a comprehensive, energising book.  The best books on Liverpool (A Game Of Birds And Wolves, Wondrous Place, There She Goes) have a narrow focus and do it well.  This, is probably the first to take a panoramic view as broad as The Mersey and succeed.  It is published on February 27th by Head Of Zeus and I thank them for a preview copy.  #liverpoolandtheunmakingofbritain. 

 Fun And Games by John Patrick McHugh:

John is a seventeen year old, who lives in a small village in the west of Ireland.  His nickname is ‘Tits’, as his mum sexted someone and the picture went viral.  As a result, his parents are separated.  He’s in a loose relationship with Amber, a slightly older girl.  John is still in love with his first girlfriend.  The novel plays out over these events, his sister’s wedding and his games for the local Gaelic football team.  

It’s a timeless tale, so let me tell you it’s set in 2009.  Your shagging playlist on an MP3 is nine songs, an animation of an envelope being folded proves your text is sent.  Its main theme however, is not nostalgia but how men relate to men and how they, in turn relate to women.  

There’s plenty of teenage shagging between John and Amber - hot, sweaty and furtive. The main themes have been done before though, and as a result the action grows a little episodic. Plus, the relationship between John And  Amber takes a turn in the last third and it doesn’t really seem credible and the novel ends on a question mark.  

Viewed with modern eyes, however John can be seen as having ADHD and body dysmorphia. However, this is a dark, solipsistic read but lacks narrative pace.

It’s published by Harper Collins on April 24th and I thank them for a preview copy.  #funandgames

 Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kirsten Arnett:

Cherry is a Floridian, scraping a living as a clown and paying the rent with a dead end job.  The best entertainer on the circuit is Margot The Magician.  Can Cherry fall in love, make a living and reconcile with her Mum?

Well, I’m gonna leave you to find out.  It’s the kind of novel that in less-talented hands could be a disaster.  The outrageous nature of the plot is always there and there’s the make-up of dark jokes.  In between that, it flits between being a workplace comedy (all Cherry’s co-workers have side hustles), a book about art versus commerce, imposter syndrome, the impending fubar of a right-wing America and queer relationships.

It also strikes me as being an incredibly erotic, comedic book.  It opens with Cheryl ‘entertaining’ a bored mum at a kids party (Mum has a clown fetish) and we have some great sex scenes - especially Cherry and Margot’s first encounter portrayed as the stages of a magic act.  

This is balloon of a book that is dark, funny and ties itself off in a sweet bow.  It’s published by Little Brown on 18th March and I thank them for a preview copy.  #stopmeifyouveheardthisone.  

 Slags by Emma Jayne Unsworth:

Sarah hires a camper van for her sister Juilette’s birthday.  Juliette is a mother, married to a decent, yet dull bloke.  Sarah limps from hook up to hook up.  The great love of her life was her English teacher, Mr Keavney. As the sisters head to Scotland by Hymer, the story switches between this and what happened in the Summer of Sarah’s last year in school.  

I’ve been a fan of Unsworth’s writing for a long time - Animals was adapted as a film and didn’t quite capture the wabisabi of the book.  This is a genuine treat. It’s funny, Rabelasian and Wildean by turns.  It’s dead on in the way sister relates to sister.  And, by turns men and boys relate to women.  

It’s also brilliant on the ascending boho that was late 90’s Manchester.  She’s also brave enough to stitch a fictional thread to this, the boy band 4Princes.  What happens to Sarah is a genuine shock (and not the one you’re thinking of).  When the novel takes a dark, sharp turn she’s still in control of a book that is sweet, sour, touching and horrifying all at the same time. 

It’s published by Harper Collins on May 8th May, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy.  #slags