The ultimate unreliable narrator.

Twelve year old Edith lives permanently in her father’s theatre, the only theatre remaining in Edwardian Norwich. She cannot leave for the curse put upon her when she was a baby ruled that if she were ever to leave, the theatre would fall down. Then the person who put the curse on her exploded. (It did happen in a theatre after all.) Now Edith’s got a play of her own in mind that she wants her theatrical staff-family to put on: never having left the theatre, Edith’s done a monumental amount of reading, has learned all there is to know about Norwich (she probably knows more than residents who may traverse it freely) and has learned that a large number of children have gone missing over the years and the culprit is a nasty old woman called Mawther Meg. As her father’s doppelganger understudy confuses her, Mr Measly keeps trying to get her to hug him, her father’s four dead wives’ clothes remain in his rooms, Aunt Bleachy calls her bucket and talks lovingly about her Mop, and father’s new fiancé tries to lure Edith out down the steps of the main entrance (she’s the heiress to the Beetle Spread factory, made of exactly that ingredient) Edith attempts to outwit them all, stay away, and write the truth about what happened to the children.

Edward Carey’s Edith Holler is a bonkers and often confusing book about a young girl’s struggle to be noticed in a way that is full of respect and care, to be listened to. It’s a phenomenal piece of literature and art (Carey’s drawings are included) and is a delight to read. To quote the oft-mentioned-by-Edith Hamlet, ‘To be or not to be’ is precisely the question. Who, what, and, sometimes, where, is Edith? You’ll change your mind very often while reading this book.

On the one hand you have, as stated, an unreliable narrator – it can get incredibly frustrating being in Edith’s head, you’re stuck to her narrative like she’s stuck to her theatre – and on the other hand you have something incredibly true. Confusing? Yes, it is. The thing with Edith Holler – referring to the entire book here rather than the character, though the book and character may be one and the same, who knows? – is that it is wholly theatrical. Edith’s narrative is like a monologue – it is a monologue, just one by a child so, unlike your usual monologue plays, it goes on a bit due to lack of maturity and lack of editing. She does ramble so. (Potentially necessary note: the book as a product of Edward Carey, author, is edited.)

Having written the bracketed sentence it makes sense to now mention the ‘reason’ for this book. This reviewer’s jury is undecided. Possibilities range from mental illness (and across the road is a mental hospital), to child abuse, to a play within a play or play in a book entirely, to puppetry and animation. Where you are indeed with Edith throughout, I think it’s fair to say you may never reach a complete conclusion, but isn’t that just the way with pieces of theatre (and literature) sometimes?

Carey’s theatrical concepts – we should maybe say ‘Edith’s concepts’ because if Edith were told she was a creation of an author originally from Norwich she’ll either self-destruct in fear or depression (that might be appropriate) or, likely as she is with Karl Baedeker the famous guidebook author, become rather obsessed – are both purely his own and taken from various plays. There’s blood and death everywhere, very often, a bit like Shakespeare; there’s children’s toys and dolls and we might be in a doll’s house, like a meta reference to Ibsen. Dolls house – add that to the list of possible ‘reasons’.

On toys, we need mention Carey’s drawings. Carey has included drawings in all of his works and they are always intriguing but I think it’s apt to say they’ve taken on a particularly important role here – pun definitely intended. (Add a child playing with her toys to the list of possibilities.) The drawings present a very strong case for a particular meaning and reason for the whole book, for Edith and everyone else. So too does the fact that, if you visit Carey’s website, you’ll find a printable card theatre with a range of characters included.

I’ll include a single other character of note, though there are more – Edith’s father’s fiancé, whose introduction in the book ushers in a new era and many new questions for the reader. Or are we, perhaps, members of the audience as well?

I’m starting to sound like Edith, I fear, so here’s a related yet different topic: Carey’s necessarily limited portrayal of Norwich is appealing. It is in fact due to the limitations Edith’s life sets on the text that perhaps makes it stand out all the more – there’s a lot of very specific street-to-street facts here, a bit like the guidebook Edith loves (oh this is all getting too meta!) that allow you to know a nice amount of information about this city in its Edwardian form. Norwich too is part and parcel of this text – there are again many inspirations, and literary metaphors abound.

Edith Holler, then – again the book, not the girl, though the girl is probably stomping her feet at me for the twice-now dismissal of her person – is quite the literary feat. The literary (genre) elements, the intertextuality, the use of and grounding in its location, and of course the overriding theatricality and artistic nature of it are superb. Best read alongside reader-led research into the various parts (especially if you do not know Norwich – the nearest this reviewer has been is Lowestoft and that as a child) unless you are well informed already. It’s a great experience.

I was sent this book in order to interview the author.

Publisher: Gallic Books (Belgravia)
Pages: 390
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-913-54778-3
First Published: 31st October 2023
Date Reviewed: 30th August 2024

Because women can write and sell books, too.

In the US, Jacqueline Susann is looking to be on the bestseller list with her debut novel, the forthcoming Valley Of The Dolls. Early on she gets breast cancer and makes a pact with God to give her ten more years in which to make enough money so that her autistic son is taken care of for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, in the UK, Jackie Collins is concerned with the breakdown of her marriage to a very mentally ill man and putting food on the table – she wants to start writing. And back state-side, Nancy moves to New York to pursue her dream of becoming an editor. All three women must learn to work with and subvert the stereotypes and sexism they come across to be the successes they know they can be.

Scandalous Women is Paul’s latest novel, about Jacqueline Susann and Jackie Collins (and also the purely fictional Nancy), is a story of strength, women’s agency, and, arguably, the literary industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Told in the third person via the three women quoted, Paul is able to deliver a lot of information alongside her fictionalisation of a momentous change for women authors, including the period’s steps in the struggle for women to be accepted as equals.

Paul has an uncanny talent for creating not just an interesting story but diving under the surface and serving up information in a way that makes you speed through the book at a rate of knots in order to devour it. She is here, as always, able to present a story in biographical fiction form where you know that you can rest assured that if whatever you’re reading in any given moment is not true, it’s either not too far from the truth or a real possibility that could have been.

There is some great and subtle intertextuality here as well as whatever the term is (or would be, if there isn’t one) for an effective inter-biography-textuality. Paul’s Jacqueline, in particular (Jackie has her moments, too) makes a point of telling various people, generally interviewers or her fellows in the publishing industry, about – when criticised for not being literary – how she concentrates on storytelling and how fiction for women that looks at sex is absolutely fine. (She’s selling bestsellers by the thousands, constantly, after all – Google says it’s at 40 million now). Paul’s prose fits this perfectly – her usual straight-forward and very welcome style seems here to be fine-tuned to her subjects; this book is particularly accessible, meaning that you can focus on the plot and themes and there is never any need to re-read what you’ve read in order to understand it. This accessibility is a big part of why the thematic sections of the book, where they pertain to publishing industry concepts and history, are so fascinating; it’s like the success of the advertising aspects of Paul’s previous book, A Beautiful Rival, only with further concentration and exploration applied.

Paul has brought the real people to life; Jacqueline and Jackie are here completely and understandably, but their husbands – lesser-known if Wikipedia is correct – and others burst from the page as well. They feel true to life – Jacqueline’s mix of business and kindness can be seen in various interviews, for example. She’s rather inspiring – she’ll make sure you know how much she’s sold but she’ll also remember things about you she can ask about later to show that she gives a damn, and while that may help her gain admiration it also very much does come as a kindness too. (Yes, I have been rather taken by the interviews I’ve watched¹.)

A paragraph break must be made here to discuss the meetings between Jacqueline and Jackie. There is no solid evidence that this happened but in true Gill Paul style, a conclusion has been reached after assessing the probabilities (in this case that they attended many of the same events) and the fiction spun from there. There’s a very caring conversational thread towards the end that really shows off the reasoning Paul has applied to her choice to have the two know each other.

Back to characterisation, and the fictional people are just as great as the factual. Their development is strong, with a particular note needing to be made for the most important fictional character, Nancy. It’s fair to say that you may just find Nancy to be your favourite; perhaps due to the fiction and the relative lack of limitations Paul had when creating her (she did still have to be woven around the reality) there is just that little bit more development, and of course Nancy is where the publishing industry itself comes alive.

You may wish sometimes that it hadn’t come alive. One of the focuses of Scandalous Women is the misogyny of the publishing industry of the time – the sheer number of men versus women, the side-lining of women, and the sexism, which is shown both in dialogue and in actions. (As an example, Nancy must slide down a fireman’s pole in her skirt in order to get one of her jobs, and yes, that is based on fact.) Nancy has a tough time convincing her boss and everyone else to give women’s writing a chance, even when those same writings are doing fantastically across the pond. And Jacqueline and Jackie, despite being bestsellers, have their own snarky remarks and harassment to deal with. They’ve more agency to respond with due to their relative standing compared to Nancy but it still reads as ridiculous, and, sadly, very real. And on other topics it’s not a spoiler to note, Paul includes Jacqueline’s religious belief, struggles with cancer, and motherhood, carefully and with full respect to the real woman.

If there is anything wanting, this reviewer wished there was just that bit more narrative, for the fictional Nancy to be given more time – her fascinating career in motion and her story, albeit tied up well at the end, was ever intriguing, and that is entirely down to the storytelling.

Scandalous Women is, then, a fantastic look at two of the women who were the defining people of a defining moment in the publishing industry. Full of information and period detail as well as a solid page-turner factor, it’ll entice you, make you want to know more and, if you haven’t read them already, you’re going to finish it wanting to go and pick up those novels that were oh so indecent.

I was given my copy of this book by the author.

Publisher: Avon (HarperCollins)
Pages: 365
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-008-53216-1
First Published: 13th August 2024
Date Reviewed: 9th September 2024

Footnotes

¹ One such interview is Susann’s interview on Good Afternoon in 1973

Extreme choices.

Izabela meets Bill when he’s brought to her farm by the Nazis as part of a work team; the Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia but want to keep the industry going and when Izzy’s mother says that yes, they could do with some help on the farm (Izzy’s father and older brother have gone to fight in the resistance) the Nazis bring a couple of British prisoners of war. Izzy falls for Bill fairly quickly as he does her; her English isn’t good (and, to be fair, his Czech is non-existent) but it happens. And then the looks and touches and secret conversations turn into a longing to be together. Izzy makes a tremendous decision; she’ll join Bill and do a runner. The pair do so with Izzy dressed as a boy, hair shorn. It’s against everything in the wartime ‘rules’. Discovery would mean death.

The Prisoner’s Wife is an exhilarating tale of mental strength and deception. Based on a true story and told via a couple of different narratives – Izzy’s and Bill’s, which I’ll expand on in a moment – it provides an at times awful but nevertheless compelling and immersive story that leaves you with a couple of threads untied for a dramatic and meaningful finish.

Starting with the writing, Brookes’ prose is wondrous, fully of imagery and detailing that makes everything easy to picture. Too easy to picture, you might lament, when the horrors arrive, as you know they will. There are many chapters confined to very small places, yet these come alive as much as those of wider scope, owing to Brookes’ skill when it comes to description and, arguably, storytelling in general.

That then supports the earlier notion of immersion; an expansion must be made on narrative. Brookes does something very literary with her narratives. You have the regular choice – as there have been many books that do such by this time – of two narratives split by point of view as to cover both main characters, and a further choice to write one in first person and one in third. So far, so normal. But with Brookes’ story and her inclusion of language as a continual plot thread, the narrative takes on an additional purpose. Izzy’s command of English is slight, and in disguise she must remain mute so that her voice does not betray her. So then Brookes’ first person narrative shows the progression of Izzy’s English comprehension as well as provides the reader a way to know about her when she cannot speak. The latter is perhaps pretty obvious, but the former is particularly interesting for the way and times Brookes chooses to focus on it – at the start Izzy thinks a lot about English but by the end her progression is far more in the subtext. And then you have Bill’s third person narrative – it’s not so focused (he gets dialogue after all) and creates an interesting distance between him and yourself, the reader, where you end up caring far more for Izzy, the person who stands to lose so much more. You may even get irritated with Bill on occasion – he is far from the perfect person in Brookes’ narrative, away from any commentary on his situation as a prisoner of war, and is in fact often eclipsed by the other main (somewhere between main and secondary) characters.

These other characters, then, they must be noted. Staying away from where they are located and who they are exactly as to avoid spoilers, you have Ralph, who becomes very important to Izzy, Max, who is a more quiet, bookish, sort (it’s not major but there’s a book-about-books thread going on here), and Scotty, whose character development you are sure to enjoy. Indeed Brookes develops all three characters, and some others, very well so that the various themes and, certainly, the history we’re looking at here, is relaid all the better. Brookes’ employs every aspect of storytelling in her explanation of the various scenes, showing how everything contributes towards the greater whole in a particularly notable and poignant way.

Necessarily, given the circumstances, the romance is mostly confined to thoughts and certainly the thrill is in the deception. Where romantic thoughts come in they are Izzy’s, understandably. This all said, it’s in Izzy’s thoughts of romance that a fair amount of her character development can be found – she beings very much a young woman, taken up completely by thoughts of Bill and forgetting the world (which is of course really dangerous) and ends up mature beyond her years. Part of this development, which in some ways coexists with the use of language, is in Izzy’s adoption of the persona of the fictional boy she becomes. She starts to think in terms of Algernon Cousins, her secondary identity, which becomes interesting in itself.

Better get to history – I’ve spoken about near everything else at this point! Brookes ups the anti and fools you sometimes into thinking it’s alright (well, alright as alright can be in the situation). You do become somewhat immune to everything after a few chapters – oh, they’re on the run but they’re finding places to sleep… oh a POW camp is scary but there’s an established routine – but the answer to ‘how much worse can it get?’ is, probably (I won’t assume how much you know about the war) ‘worse’, every time. There are some unapologetically realistic authors of wartime fiction – people such as Kristin Harmel with her baby murders, Jennifer Robson with the gas chambers, and Vincent Lamb with things I’m still trying to forget to this day; Brookes is on the same level. This is the war, and you can have a romance and some happier times, but it is still a war.

Two last things of note. Firstly the question of class that is looked at in the novel – it takes a backseat because it’s not as important as… well, the subjects included in the previous paragraph, but Brookes does include a small study of classism in the army through one of her characters and the effects it has on a general level. This happens in a POW camp and in the POW camp we also see – second thing of note – some of the lesser-known tasks given to dissenting prisoners. Brookes spends a good few pages on the subject – it’s yucky. It’s also something this reviewer’s never read about before and she’s read a fair number of wartime novels.

In sum, then, The Prisoner’s Wife is an expertly written, page-turning, novel that will do well on the shelves of any reader of WW2 fiction and historical fiction in general. It has the characters, it has the facts, and it has its romance when the time is right.

Publisher: Century (Penguin)
Pages: 396
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-529-12428-6
First Published: 16th April 2020
Date Reviewed: 29th August 2024

Please note that this review uses ‘Jane Austen’ and ‘Austen’ to refer to the real writer, and ‘Jane’ to refer to Bull’s fictionalisation of the same.

Catherine Morland would be proud.

When Jane comes back to the ball from the glasshouse where she’d been talking to Tom Lefroy, no one is speaking. A woman has been murdered; no one knows who she is or, indeed, who’s done it. The magistrate starts to get on with it but Jane has her misgivings about him and as the days continue and he hasn’t reached a conclusion nor, as far as Jane is concerned, made a proper effort to find out whodunnit, she decides to conduct her own investigation. Her family aren’t keen – it’s a bit of a silly idea, and Jane manages to cause great offence in her efforts to find out the truth, but it becomes all too important to her to solve when her brother is arrested. But there’s also Tom’s likely impending proposal to prepare for and cousin Eliza’s coming to Steventon. Will Jane work it out before it’s too late and will Tom ever get down on one knee?

Jessica Bull’s Miss Austen Investigates (or The Hapless Miliner across the pond), is an utterly delightful fictional take on Jane Austen’s years in Steventon, largely influenced by Northanger Abbey. In essence it is a bit of a parody of an actual parody, one absolutely brimming with excellent research, immersive use of location, careful and comedic and sensitive handling of real families from the past, and interesting fairly evidence-based interpretations. And yes, all those adjectives were necessary to include – this book is one of the most well-produced literary works I’ve read in a long time.

It is obvious very early on that everything Bull does in this book, all the choices she makes, has or have been fully thought out. Let’s start with the general concept – the influence of Northanger Abbey on the text. Bull’s fictionalisation of Jane Austen is partly informed by what we know of Austen herself, and partly informed by Austen’s character, Catherine Morland. (This latter person is most in evidence when our titular character of the book this review is about becomes incredibly illogical and won’t be drawn by reason, much like our dear Catherine.) Bull’s balancing of the different personalities into one character – I say ‘different’ even though I myself believe it’s likely Austen herself was remarkably fun – won’t be for everyone, in fact it’s likely some readers may find her silliness too much, but I’d wager most people will ‘get’ it at the very least.

Of course it’s also in the element of the mystery here that Catherine Morland can be found; Bull’s novel is very much a mystery novel and well set in its time and society – Jane never goes around with the historical equivalent of a policeman and no one is shooting anyone, instead Jane’s investigations largely take the form of musings and a couple of brief questions here and there over a cup of tea and slice of cake at various houses.

(This in itself is something to remark upon – Bull’s setting Jane as the sleuth enables a look at how women were treated more as decorations and possessions rather than people. There’s a particularly sad scene wherein the funeral of the murder victim – a woman – is attended by just a few men and Jane hides herself outside because as a woman she cannot be at the funeral. See also the way Jane is asked to stop investigating – whilst this is in line with Catherine Morland’s experiences it also aligns with the historical treatment of women in her position.)

Looking at location and society – friends and family, mostly – this is arguably where most of the heart in the book can be found. Bull has recreated the village of Steventon and the now-lost Steventon Rectory where Austen grew up (it was torn down within a few years of the Austen family moving away) and looked at Ashe House and Deane House in the nearby villages of the same names (which still exist and are privately owned). The sense of place and time is fantastic and it’s easy to get lost in the world and carry on turning the pages. Bull also shows Jane’s time with her family and there is a lot of fun to be had in the dynamics between members, particularly baby Anna (made younger in this book than she would have been in real life) and Jane’s mother, Mrs Cassandra Austen.

What’s really lovely though, is that Bull has put so much work into the whole family that you’ll feel you know them more than you ever could have before. About half of Austen’s siblings are included in these fictionised forms, with James, Henry, and George paramount. (Sadly Cassandra isn’t here, but that is in keeping with her story and it allows for Bull to add an element of the epistolary novel to the book.)

George Austen is where it’s at. George is largely forgotten in our collective history, almost certainly because of what we would now call epilepsy, and the relative menial role he therefore played in society. (Case in point – there’s a Wikipedia link for every sibling, except him.) He plays a big role in the book, with Jane always thinking about him in context with what’s going on. Another character, Jane’s cousin, Eliza, who’s son has epilepsy also, is there to help her with her investigations and there is a lovely burgeoning romance with Henry Austen that’s based on the real history, too.

The writing is super, with most of the narrative in third person and Jane’s letters to Cassandra giving a first person perspective. Bull has used the format the late Deirdre Le Faye gave Austen’s letters in Jane Austen’s Letters which provides a lovely nod to study and research. Bull has also slipped her letters in the gaps between the letters that were burned by the real life Cassandra, and added her own nod to this unfortunate piece of history in the letters themselves.

I can’t end this review without mentioning Tom Lefroy; Bull has come to an evidence-based conclusion as to the nature of Austen’s relationship with him and explored it in her book. It is very well done and there are further choices made that increase her character’s agency.

There is a lot more that could be said about this book – it’s a treasure trove of parodies and references – but a review can only be so long. Miss Austen Investigates is one you certainly want to read if you are at all a Janeite, or/and if you like mysteries. It may even suit your general historical fiction fan, as well. It is an absolute delight, and joy or joys, book two is already on the horizon.

I received this book from the publisher in order to interview the author, which is something I set in motion.

Publisher: Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House)
Pages: 435
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-241-64208-5
First Published: 25th January 2024
Date Reviewed: 30th April 2024

Kristy Woodson Harvey wanted to write about a wedding veil. Her agent suggested a historical wedding veil, and when Woodson Harvey started thinking about the Vanderbilts (because she loved visiting Biltmore House, the family’s home in Asheville, North Carolina), on a whim she Googled one of the women of the family to see if there might be a veil included somewhere. There was.

In the present day, Julia is about to marry Hayes, her long-term on-again-off-again boyfriend. During her bridemaid’s lunch at Biltmore House the day before, there’s a sudden load of pings; all the women’s phones go off with notifications. Someone has filmed Hayes cheating and sent it to everyone at the lunch. Julia is devastated but she’s been with Hayes so long and they always make up and get back together, so she says she’ll still marry him. The next day she puts on the family wedding veil; it brings good luck. And she will marry Hayes… well, she means to but then to heck with it, she does a runner and by the end of it all she finds herself on her honeymoon by herself thinking about all the things she gave up and being drawn to a man she meets early into the holiday. At the same time, narrative-wise, in the 1800s, Edith Dresser is about to marry into the Vanderbilt family; she wears her family’s wedding veil (yes, there is no sense in hiding it – there is a connection) and finds herself in a happy marriage that later produces Cornelia, the next in line to inherit the family’s wealth.

The Wedding Veil is Woodson Harvey’s wonderful stand-alone novel of the lasting power of female friendship and familial love, romantic love and being who you should be… and the mystery behind where Julia’s family’s wedding veil came from. Told via four narratives (Julia’s grandmother Babs and Cornelia Vanderbilt round us off) the book offers a wholesome, winsome, story that is pretty much guaranteed to delight.

Woodson Harvey is great at character development and her way of writing is absolutely lovely; from the first page you’re very much invited to join the story. The author has a particular talent for writing characters which means that even if there’s one you don’t like (you’re not going to like Hayes, for example, and for a few pages you may not even like Julia) you’re totally invested in the tale. And in the case of Woodson Harvey, writing definitely needs to be placed in the same paragraph in a review as her character development because they are part and parcel of each other; in the author’s Southern States setting and general ambiance, you get a complete sense of calm, of escape, of knowing you’re about to be whisked away into a well-told story.

That is, I think, the exact defining element of this author’s work – her ability to give you that promise, through her writing, of having chosen the right book and take you on a great journey; maybe you know where it’ll end up, maybe you won’t (Woodson Harvey definitely knows how to get the balance right between mystery and predictability), but you are guaranteed a satisfying story no matter what.

So you’ve got four fab narratives here – 1800s’ Edith Vanderbilt, whose husband George built the Biltmore House in Asheville, Cornelia (their daughter) born in 1900, and then Julia and Babs from the present day. Edith’s narrative allows you to see the Vanderbilt family in their prime, and then Cornelia’s shows the slow decline, her narrative straddling the fence of before the Great Depression and the aftermath. There is also, of course, the look at both women in their own rights as well as their relationship with each other and the way they both ‘deal’ with romance. Julia’s narrative offers a sad but busy beginning and a happier forward journey, showing how one can get swamped and lose themselves in a bad relationship and the change that can come from a better one, whereas Babs shows two good relationships – one in absentia, so to speak (Reid is dead) – and, perhaps most importantly, that love can happen at any age. Writing older women, giving them a voice and putting them front and centre of the narrative is another thing that Woodson Harvey does well.

Of the Vanderbilts’ lives, then, you see the opulence and the glamour but also – perhaps in part due to Woodson Harvey’s knowledge of Biltmore – the real life, down-to-earth stuff, too. You get the Gilded Age and the way the family looked after all the employees and tenants of the estate, and the perspective, narration-wise, that Woodson Harvey uses, allows for a particular readerly intimacy with it all.

But Julia and Babs would say they are just as important. They might not have the same glamour but they do have their modern day relatability and two lovely romances. Both also have their character progression and their relationship with each other which, I think this can be said without spoiling the book, is what we end the story on.

There’s a lot to love about this book – Julia spends a while (page-wise) in the Virgin Islands, sun, sea, sand, Babs’ retirement village is very well described and fun, and the Vanderbilts bring some fascinating history into the mix. The romantic leads are winsome, whilst being very much secondary characters and rightly so.

In short, if you haven’t already figured it out by what I assume is my very obvious attempt and failure to explain exactly what I like about this book, it’s the atmosphere and the sum of the writing and the specific vibes that make this book what it is – things that are difficult to describe.

The Wedding Veil just… rocks. It’s poignant, it will occasionally make you want to tell a character to stop thinking what they’re thinking (okay, not ‘a’ character, mostly Julia when she’s thinking that maybe her cheating fiancé isn’t so bad), and it simply provides a glorious reading experience. The ambiance ensures that while, over time, you might forget the little things, you certainly won’t forget the feeling of reading this book and you will certainly miss it once it’s over.

Publisher: Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster)
Pages: 395
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-982-18071-3
First Published: 29th March 2022
Date Reviewed: 4th December 2023