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It’s August; we’re still tentatively grasping onto the fact that we might have some summer left to us, and one way of doing that is to read a great book. It makes the long (ish), hazy days stretch?out; immersed in a world far removed from everyday life, knowing that change is coming, but putting it off for just one more chapter. The past few weeks I’ve read an uncountable number of books, but if you have any semblance of an actual life, you might only have time for one this month, if so, we recommend any of the following three:
Clare Mackintosh is the up-and-coming Queen of chilling thrillers and her latest is as brilliant as her award-winning I Let You Go. It’s a typical day for Zoe Walker, and she takes another mundane journey to work – as she does every day – crammed into a packed train on the way in and an even fuller tube on the way home, making strained chit-chat and hesitant eye contact with strangers. She distractedly scans a local paper, when she spots something that makes her go cold: an ad in the classified section advertising a mysterious?website, findtheone.com and a picture of …herself. The book is unsettling in the best I-can’t-put-it-down kind of way, and the first chapter should have you hooked.
Esteemed author Margaret Atwood is back with another compelling dystopia’story in The Heart Goes Last. Atwood’s gift has always been elevating the ordinary; taking the everyday relevance of normal life to another level, so much so that the reader has no choice but to become absorbed into her unique world. This is no exception, we meet Charmaine and Stan, living in the near future and victims of social and economic collapse; they’re broke, barely able to get by and living in a car. So, when they are offered a chance to live in a gated, self-sufficient community that still enjoys plentiful food, security and employment, how could they refuse? Only, there’s a catch: to have this new life, they must not only leave behind everything they know but give up their freedom as well; every second month they must live in a prison cell. It’s a page-turner in every sense of the word; dark, riveting and a classic from this remarkable storyteller.
Many a book claims to be the next Me Before You or One Day, which only breeds disappointment, but Kate Eberlen’s?Miss You is a surprise; once I read one chapter I was unable to stop. Tess and Gus seem destined to meet, but at the crucial time, fate always seems to?intervene. Will they ever end up together? A touching book about life, love and the importance of a little bit of fate that made me laugh out loud and shed a few tears before the final page was turned. This one has ‘Summer Read’ written all over it but read it regardless; it manages to be fresh, wise and joyous, a rarity for a will they/won’t they story we’re likely all too familiar with.