Book gifts for friends and family, in three categories
This week’s picks of books for gifts are novels that roughly fit into three genres, firstly romance/uplit/family, secondly fantasy and horror, and thirdly crime/thriller/noir. More fiction books for gifts will feature next week.
Romance/Family/Uplit Fiction
Hisashi Kashiwai’s The Menu of Happiness (Mantle €21.75), the third book in this Japanese series, has really taken off. The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve food, its father-and-daughter owners seek to feed those hungry for a taste of nostalgia. A charming read.
Emma Heatheringtons’ Every Christmas Eve (Penguin €10.99) remembers Ben and Lou, two Ballyheaney teenagers in love 25 years ago. They saved the Christmas Eve party every year for a date, until something bad happened. Now Ben is back in Ballyheaney and determined to revive the Christmas Eve party tradition in the village. But he might need Lou’s help.
Heather Morris’s The Wish (Zaffre €13.99) is the first contemporary novel from the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and tells the story of Jesse, 15 years old and dying. Alex is a solitary VR designer and Jesse asks him to make a video experience of her life, with surprising consequences.
Sookie Snow’s Chef’s Kiss at the Chalet (Pan €14.50) is a classic Cinderella romance, in which student chef Eleanor is working as a chalet girl for the Hawthorne family in a snowy retreat in the Rocky Mountains. When she meets Charles Hawthorne, it looks like romance. But she’s got catering college back in London and Charles’s family are unhappy with this choice of girlfriend.
In Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s Once A Year (Hachette €15.99), Sheila heads off to the annual family gathering held in her family’s hotel, the Castlehill. She has finally divorced her feckless husband, but her family don’t know. Her sisters have issues of their own to tackle as they all converge in the Castlehill, and Sheila’s not the only one who has kept some things to herself. A beautiful novel about imperfect families and the struggles we all face during winds of change.
Chloe Ford’s House Party (Head of Zeus €13.99) is a slow-burn festive romance in which Hattie has had a crush on her best friend’s brother, Freddie, since forever. Now newly single, Hattie’s best pal Sam whisks her off to a forest cabin to cheer her up. There’s snow. And no mobile phone service. And an apocalyptic blizzard. And then Freddie shows up…!
In Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Same Backward as Forward (Penguin €13.99), nurse Hannah is forced to keep Toby alive, and he is the man responsible for the fire in which Hannah’s younger sister died. An epic enemies-to-lovers saga, full of danger and adventure, written in a clever ‘back-to-front’ layout, one half being Hannah’s story and the other Toby’s.
Fantasy and Horror
Joe Hill’s King Sorrow (Headline €16.99) is a huge tome about a group of friends who unleash the power of a dragon to solve their problems. That he does, but what they don’t at first realise is the dragon will return once a year for a human sacrifice. If they don’t find a suitable victim for him, he’ll take one of them.
A fiendishly good novel for Stephen King fans, written by King’s novelist son. TL Huchu’s Secrets of the First School (Tor €23.20) is set in Scotland, where the powerful Cult of Dundas intends to ascend to godhood, corrupting every magic school in Scotland on their way. Ropa (who at the start of the novel is dead) must find a way out of The Other Place to save her sister and gather allies before Edinburgh falls. A tense and fast-moving fantasy adventure.
Hiron Ennes’ The Works of Vermin (Nightfire €17.99) follows Guy, an exterminator who kills the things that crawl out of the river in the decadent and deadly city of Tiliard. A worm the size of a dragon is spreading its venom around the city and it’s Guy’s job to get rid of it. A complex and dark fantasy.
In Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters (Atlantic €16.99), three women of the same family are subjected to a family curse that has lasted for generations – that no man will ever stay with the family’s womenfolk. A sweeping love story with darkly supernatural undertones.
Crime/Noir/Thriller
This genre will be spread over two issues, so popular is it, and with so many great novels out there. Here are some for starters.
Richard Osman’s The Impossible Fortune (Penguin €22) hails the return of his gazillion-selling Thursday Murder Club characters. Elizabeth is grieving, Joyce is planning her daughter’s wedding, Ron’s got family problems and Ibrahim is still giving therapy sessions to a criminal. When a wedding guest admits to fearing for her life, the gang double up on solving both a puzzle and a murder. Brilliant, and funny.
Marie Cassidy’s Deadly Evidence (Hachette €16.99) is the former state pathologist’s second novel featuring the fictional state pathologist Terry O’Brien. Terry is examining the body of a garda who’s been murdered and left on gangland ground. Her post-mortem reveals some uncomfortable evidence. She’s also working on cold cases and hoping for a clue as to who murdered her sister many years ago. Although some truths might be better left buried.
Bob Mortimer’s The Long Shoe (Gallery €16.99) follows Matt as he loses his girlfriend, his cat and his apartment. So, he gratefully takes a new job that comes with accommodation. But the job isn’t quite what Matt expected. It’s a mystery with three or four suspects! And it’s a hoot.
Noelle W Ihli’s Forget You Saw Her (Pan €12.99) is a prequel to her previous novel, Ask for Andrea, and in it Sabina is still regretting putting her daughter Andrea up for adoption 17 years before. Then a letter from the police arrives, declaring Andrea a missing person. A tense, pulse-pounding thriller.
Joel Jessop’s Murder by Christmas (Michael O’Mara €18.99) is both a novel and a puzzle book, where 25 puzzles will hopefully lead you to find out who killed poor Mr Holly at the Christmas play rehearsal in the sleepy English village of Candlestow. Great seasonal fun. Though not for Mr Holly, I suppose.
Footnotes
Another extravaganza for the kids is The Convention Before Christmas family festival on this weekend, December 6 and 7 in Swords. See theconventionbeforechristmas.ie for details.