Cloudless by Rupert Dastur:  

North Wales, 2004: John and Catrin are struggling farmers with a teenage son and another serving  in Iraq.  Over the course of a year, we follow a fractured relationship, infidelity and instability through the lens of the Welsh landscape and what are now historical events. 

It’s funny to think of 2004-05 as ancient history, but it is.  This is debut novel and it’s a well-written, thoughtful debut.  However, I think the biggest problem is in its structure.  The framing device is the Iraq War and its subsequent enquiry - each chapter begins with a death toll for that month in the narrative. 

Events also seem to have some weighted significance - everything seems to have relevance to something else. You can make an educated guess at to what’s going to happen to the son in Iraq.  The narrative also seems to have a number of themes (death, fate, chance, marriage) but there is not enough interconnectedness between them.  The novel also ends with a coda a decade later which wraps things up a little too neatly.  

In conclusion, it’s a portentious debut, with the prose too dense to just let the story drift.  It’s published by Penguin on February 27th, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy.  #cloudless

 Hollywood To Kentish Town by Patrice Chaplin: 

To answer your first question, she is related to him.  But let’s talk about the book, shall we?  In the 1980’s, she’s in and out of the Hollywood set, desperately trying to get her novel Siesta made as a film.  In between that, she is coping with the Hollywood system.  The pitfalls of that are lying someone $100k to read your screenplay, Brando’s appetite for food and an extremely flirtatious (as you’d expect) Nicholson.  

It’s not the kiss and tell that has been done before.  Admittedly, it is a slight read (under 150 pages), but it’s an elegant, sophisticated, non-linear one. It’s also a very skilful, contrasting the bleak uncertainties of 1970’s London, with the brash, sunlit gaze of Hollywood.  

It’s published by Quadrant Books on 20th June and I thank Grace Pilkington for a preview copy.  

If any king needed a biography, it’s a Henry. Much of that mythos is bound up in Shakespeare, St Crispin’s Day and the idea of England as a lion-hearted country.  Jones has form in this area and he takes a masterly, well-researched look at the king.  

The inciting incident is The Battle Of Shrewsbury, in 1403. A teenaged Henry is putting down the Welsh rebels, when he takes an arrow in the face.  The details of its removal are gory, but nothing in comparison to the grit and gore of medieval England, with burning of heretics, a rebel hanged twelve times in twelve different cities and pregnant woman left for wolves.  Faint hearted readers, tread carefully. 

The attempt is to reposition Henry as a man, not a warrior.  And it succeeds in that, depicting him as someone who loved books and music, not the favourite of his Father, but becomes king of a turbulent England and prosecutes a brutal war with France.

Agincourt is portrayed as the middle; not the end of a campaign.  Henry marries Catherine (after being offered her at 7, 9 and 12).  He dies at the age of 35, either of smallpox or dysentery.  Jones has succeeded in an essay of a man, not a king.  It’s published by Head Of Zeus on September 12th and I thank them for a preview copy.  #henryv.  

Lou is a girl in the lower sixth of a Liverpool comp.  Her English teacher asks her to help Isobel acclimatise to school life - her family have moved from London.  Initially, Lou and Isobel don’t like each other… but against the scarlet background of the city, A Levels and friendship… something blossoms.  

Ok, by now you should have sussed this is a teen Scouse version of Pride And Prejudice (Lou as Elizabeth and Isobel as Darcy).  And that also works in the settings - substitute boho Liverpool, beach parties, Ladies Day at Aintree and going out in your PJ’s for balls and banquets.  Isobel even has a nasty old bat of an auntie, Austenites will love that.  

But this is no bad thing.  It’s got an enthusiasm, a warmth and wit that I’ve not encountered this year. And although this is YA book that knows its audience well (with themes of sexuality, neurodiversity, revenge porn) it’s far too good for them. Buy it for the teenager in your life and read it first.  

Leanne Egan should also be congratulated for writing a book that is both definitely Scouse, a brilliant debut and one of my favourite books this year.  It’s published by Harper Collins on 4th July and I thank them for preview copy.  #loverbirds.  

 Marigold Mind Laundry by Jungeun Yun

Jiuen is a mythical creature who arrives in Korea.  She creates a laundry, where painful experiences can be wiped from your life and wisdom is dispensed with snacks.  

The books is a massive success in its homeland and it will probably replicate that here.  It’s written in a very child-like parable structure, with the stories appearing to be interlinked in some way.  There’s also the element of Jiuen might well be millions of years old and can manifest metaphysical washing machines and the elimination of pain through magic. 

About midway through, the novel becomes episodic, with each ‘life lesson’ delivered and the next one incoming.  The narrative is also wrapped up far too neatly and with possibly the oldest of plot devices.  

Often moving, sometimes too mythical for it’s own good this mix of self-help and magic realism never quite fits together, though it will have the same cultural place as Life Of Pi.  It’s published by Penguin on October 3rd and I thank them for a preview copy.  #marigoldmindlaundry.  

 Bless Your Heart - Lindy Ryan

In pre-millenial Texas, three generations of Evans women run a smalltown funeral parlour.  Their business also covers protecting the town from Strigoi, the restless spirits of the dead.  A major incursion, plus their granddaughter in high school causes big problems.  

One look at the cover, you’d consider this to be both cute and arch.  It’s not quite that, but the early sections work well - deep fried Southern wisdom, combined with some actually well-written gore (one victim is literally gnawed to death by a toothless pensioner).  

Where the novel fails is in a clunking narrative and a mix of styles - high school novel, dark comic novel, police procedural and fantasy novel - and never really settles for either.  The 1999 timeframe seems odd, but with a key event taking police 25 years before and with the way the novel ends; I feel this might be the last we’ve not seen of The Evan’s’.  A sharper, more committed narrative might give the whole thing more bite, rather than gums.   It’s published by Rebellion on 18th July and I thank them for a preview copy.  #blessyourheart.