📖 A Spell Of Good Things
✏️ Ayobami Adebayo
📍Nigeria
👥 Wuraola. Eniola. Yeye. Busola. Motara. Kunle. 
📎 Contemporary Fiction

e-ARC from NetGalley and Canongate 
Publication Date: 09Feb23

“It was disconcerting. To feel that she was already failing at something she did not even know until recently mattered so much to anyone. She had thought she knew what was required of her. Get good grades and become a doctor. But the closer she had gotten to earning a medical degree, the more it seemed to pale into nothingness in their estimation, since she didn’t have a man waiting to marry her when she was done.”

Wow. This is a stunner of a book. Well-written, evocative and powerful. It starts slow but by the time you’re into the second part, you’re running head first trying to keep up with it. 

The story centres around two young people from opposite ends of the Nigerian social spectrum. Wuraola comes from a wealthy family and is trying to balance her flourishing career as a doctor, family expectations and a relationship with the volatile Kunle. Eniola’s family struggles to put food on the table and he is desperately fighting the shame of his poverty, trying to find a way to a better future - an uphill struggle where everything seems to be working against him leading to desperate situations.

It’s a story of light and dark. On one hand it is a stark representation of the wealth gap between Nigeria’s haves and have-nots but it is also a story of familial love and a rich culture. I read Stay With Me earlier this year and both books have convinced me that Ayobami Adebayo will be an auto-buy author for me going forward. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

📖 Maybe Next Time

✏️ Cesca Major

📍London

👥 Emma. Dan. Poppy. Miles. Gus. Hattie. Jas.

📎 Contemporary Romance 

e-ARC from NetGalley and HarperCollins UK

Publication Date: 30Mar23

“Sometimes I see you swaying in our living room to the music you love to play or adjusting an earring over the mantelpiece mirror and I get that sucker-punch feeling I got on that tube all those years ago.”

I read this in a day. I was absolutely engrossed. Emma is a successful literary editor trying to balance her work and home life. Tragedy hits, bringing this starkly into focus and we follow her story as she tries to identify and subsequently save what is really important to her in a Groundhog Day-esque loop.

There are so many important themes, not least of all social media and career burnout. Emma’s phone is constantly pinging, and we see the different messages build up. It’s pretty overwhelming and many women will recognise the pressure of trying to keep all those plates spinning - being spread too thin and not really delivering on any front. 

But the thing that hit hardest was the need to take a step back and remember what’s really important. Work will replace you in a heartbeat - it just pays the bills. Being present (physically AND mentally) at home is the most precious thing - we never know how much time we have. 

I cried buckets. I love Emma and Dan as a couple - Cesca Major writes the perfect couple as they are not perfect. They are flawed and real which makes this romance land exactly where it should - straight to your heart.

📖 Prisoners Of Geography

✏️ Tim Marshall

📍Earth

👥 Humanity

📎 Non-Fiction

“All great nations spend peacetime preparing for the day war breaks out.”

An accessible and well-written insight into global politics and the impact geography has had on them throughout civilisation. 

🎧 His & Hers

✏️ Alice Feeney

🎤 Stephanie Racine & Richard Armitage

📍Blackdown (Surrey)

👥 Anna. Jack. Priya. Rachel. Helen. Zoe. Kat. 

📎 Thriller 

“Sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life. Sometimes I think we all are.”

Another brilliant, tense thriller from Alice Feeney that keeps you guessing right up until the last few chapters. Even when I was CONVINCED I knew what was going on, I still didn’t see the final twist coming. I listened to this one as an audiobook which somehow increased the tension. Richard Armitage’s narration is so creepy.

📖 Another Brooklyn
✏️ Jacqueline Woodson
📍Brooklyn (NY), 1970s
👥 August. Sylvia. Angela. Gigi. 
📎 Historical Fiction

“But Brooklyn had longer nails and sharper blades. Any strung-out soldier or ashy-kneed, hungry child could have told us this.”

This short book follows four young girls as they grow up together in 1970s Brooklyn. Four individuals fighting their own individual circumstances find a home in each other. But the joy and innocence of their early childhood friendship cannot save them from the seedier side of their neighbourhood. And Woodson’s beautiful prose makes the very real danger of poverty, drug addiction and sexual exploitation even more stark as they navigate their teenage years.

📖 Yellowface

✏️ R.F. Kuang

📍Washington, D.C.

👥 Juniper (June) Song Hayward. Athena Liu.

📎 Contemporary

e-ARC from NetGalley and HarperCollins UK

Publication Date: 25May23

“Athena, the dead muse. And I, the grieving friend, haunted by her spirit, unable to write without invoking her voice. See, who ever said I wasn’t a good storyteller?”

The story centres on two college friends, both making their way in the world as authors. Athena Liu is successful, June Hayward not so. One evening back at Athena’s apartment tragedy strikes and she loses her life. In the chaos that follows, June grabs Athena’s latest manuscript which she subsequently edits and releases as her own, to critical acclaim.

This book has so many layers. Athena is Asian American, June is white. The novel is a historical fiction based on the treatment of Chinese labourers at the front in WW1. June changes her pen name to Juniper Song, sufficiently open to doubt in terms of her heritage. It tackles so many themes including racism, reverse racism, sexism, mental health, grief, the cancel culture, the power of social media, the toxicity of the publishing industry… It’s a dark satire/contemporary thriller/social commentary and it’s BRILLIANT.

Not going to lie, if R.F. Kuang published her shopping list, I’d probably read it. I devoured this book in a few days. Completely unrecognisable from her Poppy War trilogy yet just as captivating. Her writing is transcending genres and I’m so excited to see what she comes up with next ❤️

📖 Stay With Me

✏️ Ayòbámi Adébáyò

📍Ilesa & Jos (Nigeria), 1985-2008

👥 Yejide. Akin. Dotan. Timi. Moomi. Funmi.

📎 Historical Fiction

“You can never cover the truth. Just as nobody can cover the sun’s rays with his hands, you can never cover the truth.”

This is really, really good. REALLY good. 

Stay With Me follows married couple Yejide and Akin struggling to conceive in the face of immense pressure from their traditional Nigerian families. 

It tackles infidelity, polygamy, grief, isolation… and the full emotional impact of these themes sits heavy on the main characters. All of this makes it a very moving read.

I remember what it felt like to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for the first time. I finished Half Of A Yellow Sun and immediately read her entire backlist. I felt the same reading this - like I’ve found a real gem. I’m lucky enough to have an ARC of Ayobami Adebayo’s 2023 release - A Spell Of Good Things - lined up for the next couple of weeks and I can’t wait ❤️

📖 Black Butterflies

✏️ Priscilla Morris

📍Sarajevo, 1992

👥 Zora. Mirsad. Samir. Una. Lenka.

📎 Historical Fiction

“We’re all walled-in women here,” Samir says. He shakes his head, wraps his arm round Lenka’s shoulder. “We’re being walled in stone by stone. By hunger, by cold, by fear.”

Set in the early months of the Siege of Sarajevo, this relatively short book packs a big emotional punch.

The early chapters read almost like a love letter to the city. The main character, Zora, is an artist and the author writes like we are seeing things through an artist’s eyes. It’s incredibly visual throughout. 

We also read of a city of love and tolerance - which makes what unfolds all the more difficult to read. You feel that loss of peace, beauty, innocence, security, dignity… It’s a brutal, wasteful war and so heartbreaking.

But it’s also a story of strength, of resilience and of love. Historical fiction at its best. 

📖 Lonely Castle In The Mirror

✏️ Mizuki Tsujimura

📍Tokyo, Japan

👥 Kokoro. Fuka. Aki. Subaru. Rion. Masamune. Ureshino.

📎 Magical Realism

“You’re battling every single day, aren’t you?”

This is a beautiful story. It’s quirky but with a really important message about mental health, friendship and growing up. It’s also really clever how the different threads come together at the end.

And if you’re not normally a fantasy fan, don’t be put off. It is very character-driven and the magical elements are just a backdrop 🥰

🎧 The Troubles With Us

✏️ Alix O’Neill
🎤 Alix O’Neill

📍Belfast & Dublin, 1980s-

👥 Alix. Toni. Mummy. Daddy. Gogi. Daddy Devlin. Mel. Nat. Niamh. Mr G.

📎 Memoir

“I’d say I’m Irish first, then Northern Irish. Some days it’s the other way around. I’m a writer, a mother, a European. I’m 60% sourdough, 40% Belfast bap. OK, 70% sourdough. I guess I’m a little bit baguette now too. I’m all my drunken nights in The Cres dancing to Superstar with the girls. I’m the guilt the time our Toni fell through the roof. I’m a St Dominic’s girl and 18 years of novenas. I’m the “hands off my melons” top. I’m Mr G’s love.”

I bloody loved this. I think Alix O’Neill must only be a couple of years older than myself so all of the 90s references got major nostalgia points. Belfast is also one of my favourite cities as the people are amazing - their warmth, their humour, their matter of fact view on things. All of that is captured in this book. 

If you love Derry Girls, this will be right up your street. What Lisa McGee achieves so brilliantly with her series, weaving the seriousness of the Troubles with the life and worries of normal teenage girls, is mirrored here in this memoir. 

I don’t actually feel I can do it enough justice with my review - it delivers on a lot of levels… it’s funny, informative, endearing… and there’s some challenge there through Alix O’Neill’s social commentary. I really recommend it and (if you’re interested) the audiobook is narrated by the author with her beautiful Belfast lilt ❤️