Published in the Sunday Times
This Must Be The Place
Maggie O’Farrell (Headline)
****
Book buff
Few authors write about relationships with such acuity as Maggie O’Farrell, and in this seventh novel she delivers another deeply satisfying story. American linguistics professor Daniel Sullivan lives in the remote countryside of Ireland with his reclusive wife. When the story opens she is brandishing a rifle, seeing off a stalker lurking on their property. She is a world-famous French-English actress – think Angelina Jolie-meets-Brigitte Bardot – who had scandalously vanished from the public eye several years before. They are both wounded souls but are quietly raising their children in a home-schooled idyll when Daniel happens to hear a familiar voice on the radio, that of his first great love. He is shocked to learn that she died soon after being interviewed and this revelation tips him over into a downward spiral of guilt and regret, a spiral that begins to pull everything he has built up into a vortex. With her hallmark style of multiple narrators and switching timelines, O’Farrell carefully examines the notion of love as redemption. – Michele Magwood @michelemagwood
The Last One
Alexandra Oliva (Penguin)
****
Book thrill
Give any reality show half a chance, and you will be hooked: In the Dark is the standard Survivor-style product in which 12 strangers compete for the million-dollar prize – except there is no time limit to this show. It ends when there is only one competitor left – and Zoo is determined it will be her. Things start to go badly wrong, but Zoo thinks the corpses are mere special effects, not realising a pandemic has struck the US, killing millions. Or is she right – could it be part of “the game”? Gripping, intriguing and suspenseful, it is a thrillingly impressive debut. – Aubrey Paton
Cut
Marc Raabe (Bonnier)
***
Book thrill
Translated from German (Schnitt) and set in Berlin, this debut slasher novel is much better than the lurid cover suggests. Gabriel is an antisocial security guard who spent years in a mental institution after the death of his parents when he was 11. Now 40, he is beginning to unfurl emotionally with the help of Liz, his pregnant girlfriend. When Liz is kidnapped, Gabriel becomes a vengeful angel who must maintain his sanity even as an unspeakable horror from his childhood returns to his memory. The tight plot, clean writing and complex protagonist make up for a somewhat cartoonish villain and superfluous segues into the machinations of TV corporations. – Sue de Groot @deGrootS1
Ink and Bone
Lisa Unger (Simon & Schuster)
****
Book fling
Unger’s writing is the perfect mix of Stephen King’s creepy horror and Nora Roberts’s easy reads. It’s not just a mystery about a missing girl (Abbey is abducted in the woods), it’s also about how 20-year-old Finley has to find her psychic groove. Finley can see dead people. She also cannot stop hearing the “squeak-clink”, which is a clue to solving Abbey’s whereabouts. – Jennifer Platt @Jenniferdplatt
Book details
- This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell
EAN: 9780755358830
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- The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
EAN: 9781101965085
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- Cut by Marc Raabe
EAN: 9781786580078
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- Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger
EAN: 9781471150470
Find this book with BOOK Finder!