Ten Men by Kitty Ruskin: 

This book is the summary of the author’s lost year of 2019; when after a sexual assault during childhood, she decides to get in touch with her sexuality.  A chapter is devoted to each man and what happened, from first date to break up.  The writing is sharp and there is a refreshing frankness about sex.  There’s also a real discussion about consent - during the course of the year, she is raped twice and as a result, her mental health suffers and she considers suicide.  For that reason, the book quite rightly carries a trigger warning.  

Where the book falls down is the writing seems loose, disconnected.  It works best, like any book in a confessional genre where the writing and, by extension the writer is being true to themselves. The structure itself, seems too limiting (a man, anonymised per chapter). Plus, there is little attempt to contextualise it until the afterword and the writing in that chapter, seems to have a weight and an insight that the loose, choppy style of the majority of the book has.  It’s out now from Icon and I thank them for a preview copy.  #tenmen

 Murder On Stage by FL Everett: 

I have been a big fan of Flic Everett’s journalism for a long time.  She’s honest, sparky and witty.  This book falls into an ever-growing cosy crime drama.  Set in 1940’s Manchester, it is the third in the Edie York series, set in wartime Manchester.  In this adventure, our intrepid Mancunian journalist heroine investigates the murder of an  actor during an ENSA tour at a theatre.  

It’s a well-researched book, which slightly takes it out of what is becoming a slightly cliched genre.  Where it falls down is the clanking gears of the plot, which aren’t really more than peaks of infodumping. Plus, it’s cheeky enough to reference Agatha Christie (there’s even a dog named after one of her characters).  

But the murder itself references a very famous murder from one of the books; plus the over ends on a deus ex machina as the villain is taken in.  Which is a shame, as the characters are well-written, there’s witty dialogue, a touch of romance… but it all seems a little too referential.  It’s published by Bookoutre on 18th June and I thank them for a preview copy.  #murderonstage

The Echoes by Evie Wyld:

Hannah and Max’s relationship was never great, but now Max is dead, still present in the flat, watching his partner, waiting for the purgatory to end.  It’s a tricksy book stylistically, it works best in the chapters where Max is present, watching insects and feeling the presence of everyone who has/ever will live in the flat and seeing Hannah move on in life. 

Stylistically, it moves between this and Hannah’s life in late 90’s Australia.  And there’s enough bogans, op shops and Anzac biscuits to satisfy nostalgia freaks.  Literary readers will enjoy the overarching concept that the eponymous Echoes is the housing estate teenage Hannah lives on, but is also the afterlife that Max lives in and also partially what indigenous Australians call The Dreamtime.  

Tonally though, the book seems to suffer from an uneven, emotionally shifting and often jarring tone.  It’s meta enough to reference Ghost, Ghostbusters, Truly, Madly, Deeply and Ted Hughes’ poem Anniversary.  However, the sly wink of the short story Hannah works on in Uni - resembling Wyld’s best-known novel All The Birds, Singing - seems a little too cute for its own good. See also, Hannah’s mental health crisis portrayed with great dignity, Max’s death played for laughs.  

It’s a novel that Sunday supplements will love, but personally, I found it too erratic to be truly beautiful.  It’s published by Penguin on August 1st and I thank them for a preview copy.  

 Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid:

Writers will be re-writing Shakespeare for ooh, the next five billion years.  This novel is positioned as a ‘bravura reimagining’ of Shakespeare’s play.  And yes, like any work of fiction it’s perfectly acceptable to reposition, retool, retell.  Sadly, this falls between two ‘big’ genres

The big twist (as hinted by the cover) is Lady Macbeth is actually a witch called Roscille, plotting to rule Britain.  Macbeth has been under supernatural control for quite some time, with the witches locked in his castle cellar like Norman Bates’ mum.  This leap - Dunisane as Bates Motel works, but it begins to lack credibility as the plotting thickens.  

And yes, Macbeth itself is loosely based on historical events, the author reinterprets them and characters in such a confusing fashion, it causes the reader cognitive dissonance.  Midway through, there is the big leathery wingbeat of fantasy, which is where the novel really jumps the life to come.  An act of sexual violence is followed by a sex scene and it’s the kind of sexposition that George RR Martin deals in and even other writer in that genre deems necessary. Really, just stop.  

Not quite a historical novel, not quite a fantasy novel and not quite enough for both.  It’s  published by Penguin on 13th August and I thank them for a preview copy.  #ladymacbeth

 Amnesiac: A Memoir by Neil Jordan: 

Jordan is known for films such as Mona Lisa, Interview With The Vampire and Michael Collins.  Doomed, yet strangely beautiful romances.  I read a lot of autobiographies and it certainly takes an unusual approach - the odd, slightly dreamlike reminiscences of childhood, the non-linear time structures.  

However, it is often maddeningly, with one chapter as a poem and several shifts in point size and prose style.  He’s vague on his marriage, even vaguer on his second.  He’s very open in this dealing with other creators, such as the laser-like focus of Kubrick, the abandoned version of King Lear with Brando.  What comes across strongly of all, is the sense that what he has achieved isn’t enough.  Plus, that space opera with teddy bears speaking in verse might well have been something.  

If the book resembles anything, it is Anjelica Houston’s autobiography: eloquent, artful, but unfinished.  It’s published by Head Of Zeus on 20th June and I thank them for a preview copy.  

 Rare Singles - Benjamin Myers

Earlon ‘Bucky’ Bronco had a brush with fame a long time ago, but lives on in the Northern Soul scene.  Dinah, married to a dopey husband and a stoner son is his minder for a weekender in Scarborough.  And that is about as much plot as I am going to give you, because I’ll confidently predict that this will be one of the best novels you’ll read this year.

It’s an incredibly sweet, spiky, funny confection of a book.  It’s confident enough to connect its fictional universe to the talc and washers of Northern Soul.  Bucky exists in the world of Frank Wilson, Yvonne Baker and Don Thomas.  However, he also exists in the same universe as rapper Lil’ Widowmaker, a major plot point.  

It also has the bravery to have long steam of consciousness passages, retell Bucky’s life story and connect it to the grit and blunt of Yorkshire.  Dinah is as much  as fleshed out and likeable as Bucky.  There’s a happy ending, not the one you expect.  But one where the joy of music lives longer than the pain of life.  

It’s out on August 1st and I thank Bloomsbury for a preview copy.  

 Hey, Zoey by Sarah Crossan:

Dolores works in a comprehensive and David is anaesthethist. They have a nice house and good friends.  They’re also in a bit of rut.  Said rut becomes a rift,  when Dolores discovers her husband's animatronic sex doll Zoey bagged up in the garage.  

It’s an ingenious idea and one that has massive potential.  Sadly, it isn’t explored to the full extent of that.  The discovery of Zoey leads Dolores to re-evaluate her relationship (conclusion: not that great in the first place), plus the other aspects of her life (a sister with a burgeoning career  in the New York art scene/in a mental health crisis/ a mother with dementia).  The creepiest parts of the book is where Zoey becomes a BFF.  But again, the novel’s tone seems conversational, where it should be confrontational, seeming content to hint at things where it could and should have explored them further (IE Dolores considering taking her relationship with Zoey to a different level).  

It’s a high concept novel, in a year full of them.  Another fault is the novel seems glossy, yet unfinished.  And at 163 pages, some may admire the gloss, but others may feel as if playtime has ended prematurely.  It’s published by Bloomsbury on 23rd May and I thank them for a preview copy.  

 I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue:  

This is a spiky, engrossing but ultimately touching read.  Jolene is a Canadian-Iranian woman working in the admin of a supermarket chain.  Her snarky habit (sending white text emails to her colleagues about the things they do that piss her off) is rumbled.  Cliff, the IT guy adjusts her computer settings so that it can be monitored… but it also means she can see everyone else emails.  Which means she is party to loneliness, marital infidelity, abusive relationships… and the forthcoming round of redundancies.  

It’s an original conceit, definitely up there with The Husbands by Holly Gramazio.  And true, there is the odd Canadian/Iranian reference that might need a google.  But it’s brave enough to be a revenge comedy in the first third, one about dysfunctional friendships in the middle eight and take a twist that is both sweet and shocking in its final third.   

If you’ve ever experienced the silent, soul sucking snark of an office, you’ll lap this up.  Don’t buy it and you’ll get a white text from me.  It’s published by Harper Collins on 23rd of May and I thank them for a preview copy.