by Nilesha Chauvet — Rita Marsh is not in a good place. The last paedophile she exposed committed suicide soon after. Now her friend Leila needs help…
Tag: UK
The Silence Factory
by Bridget Collins — Gothic, historical fantasy. The Silence Factory is an imaginative, immersive and spellbinding story. I was thoroughly captivated!
How to Kill a Guy in Ten Ways
by Eve Kellman — Another female serial killer novel with gallows humour and deplorable men getting their comeuppance in myriad painful ways.
A Curtain Twitchers Book of Murder
by Gay Marris — Highly entertaining yarn about a 1960’s London street where murder is just behind the curtains. Well written and great fun.
Briefly Very Beautiful
by Roz Dineen — Conveys an aching sadness for a lost world, and the exhaustion of daily struggling in a hostile environment.
Birding
by Rose Ruane — Birding is an immersive novel about women’s lives, consent and about how acknowledging and verbalising abuse can lead to greater clarity.
The Household
by Stacey Halls — A mystery and fictionalised account of the setup, by Charles Dickens and a wealthy heiress, of a house for fallen women.
The Husbands
by Holly Gramazio — What if you could order an unending list of husbands (and lifestyles) to choose from? An imaginative, funny, philosophical fantasy novel.
The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley — Secret government mission involving a myopic civil servant, time travellers and a plot to save our future. Gripping and beautifully written.
Violet Hamilton, Lady Detective series
by Hannah Dolby — Meet the most delightful detective ever written, Violet Hamilton, in No Life for a Lady and How to Solve a Murder Like a Lady.
Toxxic
by Jane Hennigan — A matriarchal world damaged by and struggling to move on from its patriarchal, violent past. A moving novel and a painful read.
Shaking Hands With Elvis
by Paul Carroll — An apparently light-hearted novel about assisted dying that feeds into a facile, populist narrative. Scare-mongering.
What Doesn’t Kill Us
by Ajay Close — A beautifully written, gripping and immersive, and still very relevant historical novel about misogyny and activism.
The Trials of Marjorie Crowe
by C.S. Robertson — Murder in a small community. Robertson does it again, with another great female character, Marjorie Crowe. Gripping and immersive.
The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill
by C.S. Robertson — Grace is a death scene cleaner. A well written, character-driven, immersive crime read. I loved it. Dark, disturbing and unusual.
The Best Way to Bury Your Husband
by Alexia Casale — The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is, surprisingly, a very moving AND uplifting AND very funny book about domestic abuse and violence. Really!
The List of Suspicious Things
by Jennie Godfrey — A child tries to track the Yorkshire Ripper. Immersive and multilayered.
Under Ground
by E.S. Thomson — Victorian filth is Under Ground. Feel it clinging to your shoes and smell it as it assails your nostrils. It is gross — and engrossing.
The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch
by Melinda Taub — Funny, clever and very, very entertaining pastiche with witchcraft and tomfoolery.
Murder by Natural Causes
by Helen Erichsen — If I’m going to use murder as light entertainment, at least it’s nice for the protagonist to be a woman. Especially if she’s good at her job.