Another reason for excitement last month: I started getting myself back into the swing of things in regards to new books. I went to Netgalley to look up the details of Lisa See’s Lady Tan’s Circle Of Women and picked up a ‘read now’ book; I responded to an email; I bought a few of the books I had come across on my various quick looks at news during the last couple of years.

There’s a book left off this list – Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights. I accounted for it last week… and I may have forgotten to add it to the stack when taking the above photo. (For transparency’s sake I will note the image above is a composite as I have the books at the sides in ebook format.)

Amanda Prowse: All Good Things – This is the ‘read now’ book, which I chose because of a slightly-relatable fact: at least until a few years ago, Amanda Prowse was one of the few big authors to visit Southampton for a signing, and this made me make a note to read one of her books one day. As we all know, putting an author on your to-be-read, especially without naming a book, is a sure-fire way to ensure you remember them only sporadically. I saw the book, I remembered, and I’m doing it now. This is effectively from the publisher for review.

Daisy Harrop has always felt like she exists in the background, and since her mother stopped getting out of bed, her life has come to a complete standstill. Daisy would give anything to leave the shabbiest house on the street and be more like the golden Kelleways next door, with their perfectly raked driveway and flourishing rose garden…

Winnie Kelleway is proud of the beautiful family she’s built. They’ve had their ups and downs – hasn’t everyone? But this weekend, celebrating her golden wedding anniversary is truly proof of their happiness, a joyful gathering for all the neighbours to see.

But as the festivities get underway, are the cracks in the ‘perfect’ Kelleway life beginning to show? As one bombshell revelation leads to another and events start to spiral out of control, Daisy and Winnie are about to discover that things aren’t always what they seem.

Brit Bennett: The Vanishing Half – I have read a little about Brit Bennett; she’s a name I’ve seen around a lot, and I could do with becoming reacquainted with prize shortlists again, in this case the Women’s Prize for Fiction. (This book won the GoodReads Choice Award for Best Historical Fiction in 2020.)

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

Orlando Ortega-Medina: The Fitful Sleep Of Immigrants – This will be the fourth book by the author I’ve read, and it’s his third novel. I have read it, and would say it’s the most accessible of his books yet; the others are all excellent but this one has more mainstream appeal. From the author for review.

Attorney Marc Mendes, the estranged son of a prominent rabbi and a burned-out lawyer with addiction issues, plots his exit from the big city to a more peaceful life in idyllic Napa Valley. But before he can realize his dream, the US government summons his Salvadoran life-partner Isaac Perez to immigration court, threatening him with deportation.

As Marc battles to save Isaac, his world is further upended by a dark and alluring client, who aims to tempt him away from his messy life. Torn between his commitment to Isaac and the pain-numbing escapism offered by his client, Marc is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils while confronting his twin demons of past addiction and guilt over the death of his first lover.

Peng Shepherd: The Cartographers – I came across the author and fell in love with the cover of this book (I’ll note it was the US edition, which has a library on it) and simply kept it in mind. It’s time.

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence… because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one – along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps…

Raven Leilani: Luster – For a while, I was seeing Leilani’s name everywhere and The Guardian in particular seemed rather taken with her work so while I was away from books and reading I noted her name down for when I was back.

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn’t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s home and family.

Warsan Shire: Bless The Daughter Raised By A Voice In Her Head – A couple of weeks ago I read about the line-up for this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize, was happy to see poetry included, and got Shire’s collection very soon after. Award-nominated, current, poetry, and a new-to-me poet? Yes please.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire’s hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.

What books have you bought/borrowed/acquired recently?