Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin:

1950’s America, Mrs Gulliver runs a brothel and takes in a young visually impaired girl, Carita as an employee.  Before long, Carita is a favourite and falls in love with the wrong boy, creating trouble for herself; let alone Mrs Gulliver.  

The writer has a reputation for writing literary fiction and there is a lot of craft and graft here, it is after all a single prose piece of three hundred pages with no chapter breaks.  However, there is allow a lot of pulp elements here: sassy dames, threatening gangsters and dialogue so arch Dashiell Hammett could run a train over it.  

Above all this, is the concept of sex as a transaction - even in the best of relationships and how economic systems hold people in poverty.  It’s published by Serpent’s Tail on March 7th and I thank them for a copy. 

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

There is already a buzz on The Husbands, similar to the kind of buzz that signals change in this book.  Lauren is a single woman, who one day has a man she doesn’t know come down from her attic.  He is a husband, but she discovers she can control the process by asking/threatening the husband to go back up.  They range from the useless, to the sinister, to a despised billionaire and the situation gets rapidly out of control.  So, how do you find happiness when you can’t find the right partner?

It’s an ingenious concept and Gramazio has the skill (in her first novel!) to explore the concept, twist it (how would you control it?) to twisting it again to give Lauren a chance of happiness - spoiler free, but let’s just say she’s not alone in having a magic portal.  She’s also a dryly witty writer, with her slang for London  (‘Zone Four Rich’) alongside Marian Keyes’ ‘feathery stroker’ as the best words to come from books in recent years.   

It’s published by Random House on April 4th and I thank them for a preview of what will be one of the best reads this year.  Curl, crack open a bag of Pretzel M&M’s and steer clear of your attic.  

Vengeance Planning For Amateurs

As elevator pitches go, it’s original:  Olivia, owner of a mobile bakery ‘Love Muffins’ has her stuffed penguin Trip stolen by her ex.  She uses the local book group to get revenge on her and all the exe’s who have wronged her.  It’s a unique, quirky and very Aussie read.  Winter has a great line in deadpan dialogue and lovable characters.   If it’s episodic in nature, that’s the nature of the novel.  It’s the queer romcom heist movie we never knew we needed, and it’ll leave you with a grin on your face and an urge for a muffin.  My thanks go to Ylva Publishing for a preview copy.  

Two Women Walk Into A Bar by Cheryl Strayed

 Cheryl Strayed is probably best known for Wild, the poetic journey across the Pacific coast.  Two Women Walk Into A Bar is a story of loss, from the narrator meeting her future mother in law through nursing her through a terminal illness.  It’s a meditation on loss and the bond between a Mother and a son and often how the spouse is the excess thread.  It’s beautifully written, which I am presuming comes down to the tale being semi-autobiographical. It’s the kind of book you can read in a coffee break (22 pages) and you’ll need another to recover.  My thanks go to Amazon Original Stories for a preview.  

Black Shield Maiden by Willow Smith with Jess Hendel

 Black Shield Maiden is a Norse saga, with Yafeu taken in slavers from Africa and sold to a Viking community.  There she becomes part of a political game involving Freydis, a Viking princess.  It’s the debut novel of artist and activist Willow Smith, with assistance from writer Jess Hendel.  

It’s a solid debut,  but it also suffers from quite a few issues.  Firstly, the actual premise takes up the first quarter of the book and that could have been edited more sharply.  The narrative only builds momentum in the second.  There is also the odd anachronism here, particularly in terms The Viking’s would and wouldn’t use.  Again, that should have been picked up.  

Once you get that past that, you can enjoy the gory thrills, romance and axe work we all love.  Fans of series such as Vikings (cited in the introduction by Smith) or The Last Kingdom will already be forming a shield wall at bookshops. It’s a book that deals in the visceral thrill; and also one that is immune to criticism - a sequel is already in the offing.  It’s released on May 7th and I thank Random House for a preview copy.  

The Story Collector by Iris Costello

 This book blends three seemly disparate female  narratives and keeps the reader guessing.till the very end.  In WW1 London, Kitty is a German immigrant in a relationship with Gillian, who finds a new persona to save her own.  In a German prisoner of war camp, Miriam assists a professor recording the dialects of captured British soldiers.  And in modern day Cornwall, recently widowed artist Kitty has left London after the death of her husband.  She begins work on a new commission for a deck of tarot cards.  

As I say, disparate.  Costello blends the three narratives together skilfully and keeps the reader guessing till the very end.  To say so much would ruin the rich surprises therein, but let’s just say that all families have their secrets… even fictional ones. And pay attention!  

 It’s part social history, part linguistic text, part family history and is an eminently readable book.  I also think that it’’s one of those books, in an age where everything you read gets streamed it will be available on tv soon.  It’s a page turner with depth, weight and optimism.  It’s published on 29th February and my thanks go to Penguin books for a preview copy.