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To be with her is a sin, to be without her is a tragedy. Eriko would seem to have the perfect life. She’s attractive, ambitious, has a great job in the seafood division of one of Japan’s largest trading companies, a fancy apartment, and supportive parents. But beneath it all she feels empty and lonely, like something is missing. When she discovers a blog by a woman who embodies her complete antithesis, her initial fascination becomes a fixation. Shoko is a messy housewife, who writes about her banal days doing the bare minimum when it comes to housekeeping, shopping in cheap Tokyo convenience stores, and eating in cheap restaurants. When the two meet in a local restaurant (meticulously planned as a chance encounter by Eriko) and get talking, it’s a case of opposites attract, and a friendship of sorts begins. But some friendships are more even than others. This one becomes heavily weighted on Eriko’s side, and things go from bad to worse. After loving Krystle Zara Appiah’s debut novel, Rootless, I jumped at the chance to read her new book. It’s 1969 in Takoradi, Ghana, and sisters Evelyn and Maggie could not be more different. Evelyn, the golden child; Maggie, the unreliable one. One thing they have in common is the dream of starting a new life in America. When an opportunity presents itself for Evelyn to move there, with Maggie to follow later, it seems like their dream is taking flight. Just before Evelyn leaves, a terrible accident occurs, leaving the sisters both more inextricably linked than ever, while also unprecedentedly divided. And Evelyn soon finds out that dreams are not always what they seem, as her exciting move to America with her new husband Gus soon turns into a nightmare. Aoileann lives in a foreboding house on a remote island off Ireland’s coast. She has grown up here, bound by geographical confines and by the confines of her family. Her mother, ‘the bed-thing’, creaks and groans in her bed, needing constant care, uncommunicative by day but on the move at night. Aoileann’s hardened paternal grandmother, ‘Móraí’, also lives there, while her soft, mournful father visits once a month from the mainland. Reviled by the other islanders, Aoileann has no-one to love, and no-one to love her, until a young artist Rachel arrives on the island. And if things were already strange, that’s when they get stranger. During a recent trip to Sweden, I got a brief insight into Sámi culture (Scandinavia’s indigenous people) and came away keen to pick up some books by Sámi writers. Stolen is the acclaimed novel by Ann-Helén Laestadius, a Sámi writer of Tornedalian descent. It tells the story of Elsa who lives north of the Arctic Circle with her family, making their living herding reindeer. The novel beautifully captures how the reindeer mean much more to them than just a livelihood; strong bonds form, in particular from when the animals are young. One of these bonds is shattered one morning when nine-year-old Elsa is out skiing alone. What she witnesses upends her life, sparking a chain of events that place both her and her family in danger. Battling with the secret of what she has seen, and the weight of the injustice perpetrated against her people, this coming-of-age story has at its heart a protagonist who is at times fierce, at times frightened, but never without courage and a deep sense of understanding of the place she too deserves in the world. Years later, as the injustice and persecution continue, Elsa starts to fight back, leading the novel to a dramatic conclusion. Old book voucher resurfaced, two new books picked up by two authors I love. And what about those gorgeous covers? This compulsive debut is a story of three sisters, one family and the deeply buried secrets that tore it apart. Lucy, the baby of the family, has left her career as a garda behind after an incident forced her to drop out. Susannah, a famous author, is living a high-flying, high-pressure lifestyle but all may not be as it seems. Middle sister Tara feels she has been sidelined, left with the mundane life, and the cracks are starting to show. Over the years, a distance has grown between them. When Susannah asks the sisters to reunite, joining her down at their mother’s cottage in picturesque Dunmore East in the South East of Ireland, this may be a chance to clear the air and rebuild their relationships. But then Susannah disappears, and the next day a body is found on the beach. It’s not Susannah herself… but Lucy does uncover a link between the victim and her sister. It’s 1965 in a small, tight-knit rural village in Ireland, and the arrival of the mysterious O’Leary siblings, Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy, causes a stir. Everyone is curious. Where have they come from and what brought them here? With Tom, the eldest, working hard to help them fit in, they soon become friendly with their popular neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan. But a dark past lingers around them, and old troubles begin to rise again. To what lengths will each of them go, or dream of going, to ensure that they don’t need to move on again? For Demon Copperhead, born to a single mother in a trailer, in a time and part of the world plagued by the modern opioid crisis (the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia), life is tough from day one. Never having known his dead father, from whom he in part gets his colourful nickname, his life from childhood into adolescence is one big fight for survival. Poverty, addiction, a brutal stepfather, heartbreaking losses, cruel foster care, and scrapes with the law are just some of the challenges that make up Demon’s journey. Despite everything thrown his way, Demon remains, for the most part, big-hearted, gentle, caring, and hopeful, a narrator that stays with you long after you finish reading his story.
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