8 BOOKS TO TAKE YOU PLACES
Holidays may be on hold for now, so escape from your armchair instead. Selected by our friends at Pan Macmillan publishers, here's eight books to add to your reading list that will transport you far and wide.
Holidays may be on hold for now, so escape from your armchair instead. Selected by our friends at Pan Macmillan publishers, here's eight books to add to your reading list that will transport you far and wide.
1. HOW TO LOVE A JAMAICAN BY ALEXIA ARTHURS
Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret – these are the tensions at the heart of Alexia Arthurs’ debut book about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Through a collection of eleven short stories, questions of identity and the lasting effects of the smallest moments are intimately and lyrically explored.
2. WAYFINDING BY MICHAEL BOND
In Wayfinding, Michael Bond fascinatingly explores how we navigate a world that's infinitely complex. Examining how we relate to places, how the human brain has evolved to keep us oriented, and how our understanding of the world affects our psychology. Beautifully written and insightful, it's a book that changes our sense of ourselves.
3. AN ALMOST PERFECT HOLIDAY BY LUCY DIAMOND
An Almost Perfect Holiday is a warm and witty story of friendship, family and hope by the Sunday Times bestseller Lucy Diamond. Set in Cornwall during the school holidays, it follows the lives of four very different women and their families. Focusing on their individual struggles and the strength they find in meeting one another.
4. AKIN BY EMMA DONOGHUE
The bestselling author of Room returns with a tale just as heart-wrenching. Akin tells the story of Noah returning to Nice for the first time since his childhood with Michael, his eleven year-old great-nephew who has been left in his care. Together they help one another unpick their painful stories and embark on writing a new, happier one together.
5. ONE SUMMER IN CRETE BY NADIA MARKS
With a gloriously sunny backdrop, the book centres on Calli whose world falls apart when her relationship ends and her chances of starting a family are gone. When she's sent to write a magazine article about the Greek island of Ikaria, it seems an ideal escape. But as she uncovers the island's mysteries and her own family secrets, her life is changed forever.
6. THE MERCIES BY KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE
Kiran Millwood Hargrave's adult debut is a love story and period thriller rolled into one. After a storm kills the menfolk of Vardø while out fishing in the winter of 1617, the women are left in charge. But when Absalom Cornet is sent to take control, accompanied by his young wife, he sees only a place of terrible evil – one he must root out at all costs.
7. THE HIDDEN BEACH BY KAREN SWAN
Bestselling author Karen Swan's latest story takes place in historic Stockholm and along the beautiful archipelagos of the Swedish coast. Here, Bell Everhurst, working as a nanny for an affluent family, discovers a secret that changes everything: that her employer's first husband has been in a seven-year coma... and now he's awake.
8. PONTI BY SHARLENE TEO
Witches, séances and vampiric lore mix in Teo’s story set in a changing Singapore. It begins as teenagers Szu and Circe form an intense friendship, offering Szu escape from Amisa, her cruel, once famous mother and giving Circe a chance to know the faded actress. Told from each woman's perspective, it explores the decisions we make in youth that can haunt us years later.
