For Ahern fans, Paper Heart is another winner
This week it’s a mix of thrillers, heartwarmers, complex couples and lots more.
Ask for Andrea, Noelle W Ihli, Pan, €14.50
In an imaginative plot that’s a faint reminder of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, three women get together to wreak revenge on one man. But this isn’t a first wives club. These women are dead. And he murdered all of them. All three were targeted by him online, through dating apps. Each one of them went along for a first date, obviously not knowing what fate awaited them. And – as the blurb says – ‘his first dates end in shallow graves’. But these women can’t rest in peace until they find some way to stop him. Sensitively told, but with heart-stopping pace, it’s an unusual thriller that will keep you up until the wee hours. And might get you thinking about those dating apps, too!
Paper Heart, Cecelia Ahern, Harper Collins, €14.99
Pip is 32 years old, lives in a box room in her parents’ house and works in the local petrol station. Aged 16, she had become pregnant by a local boy and the matter was dealt with swiftly by her overbearing mother. Now she lives a tiny life, folding origami shapes and writing poems. She meets a Dutch astronomer who opens up the wonders of the heavens to her. And then Jamie, her first love and father of her child, returns to the village after years of being away. Her life is still controlled by the awful mother, but can Pip find a way to work through her feelings for Jamie? And can a woman in her mid-30s whose life and heart have been blown about like a feather in the wind, finally grasp the courage to start her life over, on her own terms? For Ahern fans, this is another winner.
Season of Fear, Emily Cooper, Simon & Schuster, €17.99
Dark fantasy fiction is most certainly enjoying an extended moment these days, and this novel will certainly appeal to fans. Love, ritual, sacrifice and sisterhood all have their place in this story of sapphic romance. In the village community into which Ilse is born, fear is paramount. If one is not afraid, one is not ‘normal’. And Ilse is not afraid. The women in her village offer up their fears to the Saint, who in return protects them from the nearby forest, deemed to be teeming with evil. The Saint learns of Ilse’s fearlessness and insists that she repent her ‘wicked ways’. Otherwise, it will devour her sister. If this is your thing, it’s a winding tale of love and light versus dark and evil.
Such a Good Couple, Sophie White, Hachette, €15.99
Three couples in their 40s, close friends since college, gather together for their annual holiday, on this occasion in Cape Cod. It will be a sun-soaked break and everyone is looking forward to leaving their problems behind them at home. But those problems don’t really stay at home, and cracks soon appear in these close friends’ relationships, both inside and outside of their marriages. Exploring topics of eating disorders and infertility, as well as envy and the difficulties of raising children, this is another gem from Sophie White, who seems to be well capable of taking on anything; comedy, horror, cookbooks, memoir, she’s a multi-talented writer and this family saga is a thoroughly engaging, and at some stages a painfully honest, read.
The Sins of Armstrong House, A O’Connor, Poolbeg, €16.99
In a dual timeline, 1923 and the present day, the current owner of the stately Armstrong House is Kate, second wife of Nico, a descendant of the original Armstrong family. At her stepdaughter’s wedding, Kate is approached by a stranger who shows her an old photograph of Clara Armstrong taken on the estate in 1923. But the family history has always been that the family fled the estate for London in 1922, when the estate was burned down by the IRA. Kate is intrigued by the discrepancy in the timeline and decides to dig a little deeper. We are then taken back to Kent, where Clara is staying alone with her grandmother and pondering her failing marriage to Pierce Armstrong, whose sister Prudence has been instrumental in destroying the marriage. What Kate discovers, the more she investigates, is a complex web of lies and deceit, and Pierce Armstrong is at the centre of lots of local malfeasance. If historical fiction is your thing and you like the Downton Abbey vibe and era, you’ll be delighted with this.
The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown, Bantam, €24.99
Not being a Dan Brown fan, I am nevertheless well aware that his fans are legion and there’s been much excitement around this novel, his first in more than a decade. It features his hero symbologist again, Robert Langdon, and on this particular adventure he’s in Prague, along with his academic girlfriend, who has written a book about the nature of consciousness that’s about to be published. But copies of the manuscript are disappearing off computers and the only printed copy has been taken. And in the meantime, Langdon gets himself into trouble with the local police along with the cops back in the US. Watching all of the chaos from a distance is, of course, the Golem of Prague. (I won’t ruin anything for you, you’ll need to read it!) Browne is famous the world over for the appalling quality of his prose and this book is no exception, but I could live with a reputation like that if I sold the number of books he has.
Footnotes
Open House Dublin is a free festival of architecture and guided tours and events take place across the city and county in October each year. Brought to you by the Irish Architecture Foundation, the festival celebrates great architecture, urban design and the people that contribute to the creation of built Dublin. Find out all you need to know on openhousedublin.com.
Common Threads, a voyage of music and art, takes place in the Burren in County Clare till October 12. See commonthreads.events for information.